Question

I’m using HttpClient on Android to connect to https://someUrl.com/somePath. The problem is that the site’s certificate is for *.someUrl.com, not someUrl.com, so I get an SSLException. Lame on the part of the site, yes, but unless I can get it fixed, I’m stuck. Is there a way I can get HttpClient to relax and accept the certificate?

Answer 1

This is my (edited) solution:

class MyVerifier extends AbstractVerifier {

    private final X509HostnameVerifier delegate;

    public MyVerifier(final X509HostnameVerifier delegate) {
        this.delegate = delegate;
    }

    @Override
    public void verify(String host, String[] cns, String[] subjectAlts)
                throws SSLException {
        boolean ok = false;
        try {
            delegate.verify(host, cns, subjectAlts);
        } catch (SSLException e) {
            for (String cn : cns) {
                if (cn.startsWith("*.")) {
                    try {
                          delegate.verify(host, new String[] { 
                                cn.substring(2) }, subjectAlts);
                          ok = true;
                    } catch (Exception e1) { }
                }
            }
            if(!ok) throw e;
        }
    }
}


public DefaultHttpClient getTolerantClient() {
    DefaultHttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient();
    SSLSocketFactory sslSocketFactory = (SSLSocketFactory) client
            .getConnectionManager().getSchemeRegistry().getScheme("https")
            .getSocketFactory();
    final X509HostnameVerifier delegate = sslSocketFactory.getHostnameVerifier();
    if(!(delegate instanceof MyVerifier)) {
        sslSocketFactory.setHostnameVerifier(new MyVerifier(delegate));
    }
    return client;
}

It has the advantage of not changing the default behavior unless there is a wildcard domain, and in that case it revalidates as though the 2 part domain (e.g., someUrl.com) were part of the certificate, otherwise the original exception is rethrown. That means truly invalid certs will still fail.