How do I use a local HTTPS URL in java?

Question

Using the Java URL class, I can connect to an external HTTPS server (such as our production site), but using a local URL I get following exception.

"SunCertPathBuilderException: unable to find valid certification path to requested target".

How do I get a valid certification path?

EDIT: I'm not using this URL to directly create a connection, I am passing the URL to an itext PDFReader, which is then having the connection issue.

Answer 1

Here was my solution that incorporates some of the ideas in this thread and peiced together with code from around the net. All I do call this function and it sets the default Trust Manager and HostName Verifier for HttpsURLConnection. This might be undesirable for some because it will effect all HttpsURLConnections but I'm just writing a simple proxy so it worked for me.

private void setTrustAllCerts() throws Exception
{
    TrustManager[] trustAllCerts = new TrustManager[]{
        new X509TrustManager() {
            public java.security.cert.X509Certificate[] getAcceptedIssuers() {
                return null;
            }
            public void checkClientTrusted( java.security.cert.X509Certificate[] certs, String authType ) { }
            public void checkServerTrusted( java.security.cert.X509Certificate[] certs, String authType ) { }
        }
    };

    // Install the all-trusting trust manager
    try {
        SSLContext sc = SSLContext.getInstance( "SSL" );
        sc.init( null, trustAllCerts, new java.security.SecureRandom() );
        HttpsURLConnection.setDefaultSSLSocketFactory(sc.getSocketFactory());
        HttpsURLConnection.setDefaultHostnameVerifier( 
            new HostnameVerifier() {
                public boolean verify(String urlHostName, SSLSession session) {
                    return true;
                }
            });
    }
    catch ( Exception e ) {
        //We can not recover from this exception.
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}