Java 6 HTTPS client certificate authentication

I tried to use client certificate authentication with URLConnection on java 6u45 and it returns me 400 HTTP code, but when I build the same with java 7u25 it works fine and gives back OK 200.

When I tried Apache HttpPost it gives 400 error for both 6u45 as well as 7u25.

C:\java\test>"C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jdk1.6.0_45\bin\javac" Test.java -cp ".;lib/*" C:\java\test>"C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jdk1.6.0_45\bin\java" -cp ".;lib/*" Test Response Code 1: 400 Response Code 2: 400 C:\java\test>"C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jdk1.7.0_25\bin\javac" Test.java -cp ".;lib/*" C:\java\test>"C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jdk1.7.0_25\bin\java" -cp ".;lib/*" Test Response Code 1: 200 Response Code 2: 400 

I believe that it is quite easy to make it work on java 6 at least with Apache HttpPost, but I do something wrong.

My test code is as follows:

import java.io.*; import java.net.*; import java.security.*; import javax.net.ssl.*; import org.apache.http.*; import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpPost; import org.apache.http.conn.scheme.*; import org.apache.http.conn.ssl.SSLSocketFactory; import org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultHttpClient; import org.apache.http.impl.conn.BasicClientConnectionManager; import org.apache.http.params.*; import org.apache.http.entity.StringEntity; public class Test { public static void main(String[] args) { String keyStorePath = "C:\\java\\keys\\client_certificate.p12"; String keyStorePass = "someKeyStorePass"; String trustStorePath = "C:\\java\\keys\\truststore.jks"; String trustStorePass = "someTrustStorePath"; String postData = "<request></request>"; String url = "https://api.some-url.com/v2"; SSLContext sslContext = GetSSLContext(keyStorePath, keyStorePass, trustStorePath, trustStorePass); PostData1(postData, url, sslContext); SchemeRegistry schemeRegistry = GetSchemeRegistry(keyStorePath, keyStorePass, trustStorePath, trustStorePass); PostData2(postData, url, schemeRegistry); } public static void PostData1(String dataToPost, String serviceUrl, SSLContext sslContext) { try { URL url = new URL(serviceUrl); HttpsURLConnection.setDefaultSSLSocketFactory(sslContext.getSocketFactory()); HttpsURLConnection urlConn = (HttpsURLConnection)url.openConnection(); urlConn.setDoOutput(true); urlConn.setDoInput(true); urlConn.setUseCaches(false); urlConn.setRequestMethod("POST"); urlConn.setRequestProperty("Content-Type", "application/xml"); urlConn.connect(); PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(urlConn.getOutputStream()); out.println(dataToPost); out.close(); System.out.println("Response Code 1: " + urlConn.getResponseCode()); } catch (Exception ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); } } public static void PostData2(String dataToPost, String serviceUrl, SchemeRegistry schemeRegistry) { try { HttpParams httpParams = new BasicHttpParams(); DefaultHttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient(new BasicClientConnectionManager(schemeRegistry), httpParams); HttpPost httpPost = new HttpPost(serviceUrl); HttpEntity lEntity = new StringEntity(dataToPost, "UTF-8"); httpPost.setEntity(lEntity); HttpResponse response = httpClient.execute(httpPost); try { System.out.println("Response Code 2: " + response.getStatusLine().getStatusCode()); } finally { httpPost.releaseConnection(); } httpClient.getConnectionManager().shutdown(); } catch (Exception ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); } } public static SSLContext GetSSLContext(String clientStorePath, String clientStorePass, String trustStorePath, String trustStorePass) { SSLContext sslContext = null; try { KeyStore clientStore = KeyStore.getInstance("PKCS12"); clientStore.load(new FileInputStream(clientStorePath), clientStorePass.toCharArray()); KeyManagerFactory kmf =KeyManagerFactory.getInstance(KeyManagerFactory.getDefaultAlgorithm()); kmf.init(clientStore, clientStorePass.toCharArray()); KeyManager[] kms = kmf.getKeyManagers(); KeyStore trustStore = KeyStore.getInstance("JKS"); trustStore.load(new FileInputStream(trustStorePath), trustStorePass.toCharArray()); TrustManagerFactory tmf = TrustManagerFactory.getInstance(TrustManagerFactory.getDefaultAlgorithm()); tmf.init(trustStore); TrustManager[] tms = tmf.getTrustManagers(); sslContext = SSLContext.getInstance("TLS"); sslContext.init(kms, tms, new SecureRandom()); } catch (Exception ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); } return sslContext; } public static SchemeRegistry GetSchemeRegistry(String clientStorePath, String clientStorePass, String trustStorePath, String trustStorePass) { final SchemeRegistry schemeRegistry = new SchemeRegistry(); try { KeyStore clientStore = KeyStore.getInstance("PKCS12"); clientStore.load(new FileInputStream(clientStorePath), clientStorePass.toCharArray()); KeyStore trustStore = KeyStore.getInstance("JKS"); trustStore.load(new FileInputStream(trustStorePath), trustStorePass.toCharArray()); schemeRegistry.register(new Scheme("https", 443, new SSLSocketFactory(clientStore, clientStorePass, trustStore))); } catch (Exception ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); } return schemeRegistry; } }