Java Client not able to establish SSL handshake with server - ssl

Question

I have a Java client which is using the Apache HttpClient 4.1 library to make an HTTPs request to a server which doesn't require authentication. If I call that server with my browser or curl, the request is accepted. However from my Java client, I see the following (when debug is turned on)...
main, WRITE: TLSv1 Handshake, length = 81
main, WRITE: SSLv2 client hello message, length = 110
main, handling exception: java.net.SocketException: Connection reset
So it seems my client did the handshake in TLSv1 but then sent an SSLv2 ClientHello which the server didn't seem to like. According to this post it seems the server should not reject an SSLv2 ClientHello. Could it be something specific about this server that is making it reject this ClientHello?
I also noticed the below log output at the beginning of establishing the connection....
keyStore is :
keyStore type is : jks
keyStore provider is :
init keystore
init keymanager of type SunX509
trustStore is: /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home/lib/security/cacerts
trustStore type is : jks
trustStore provider is :
init truststore
adding as trusted cert:
Subject: CN=Secure Global CA, O=SecureTrust Corporation, C=US
And then it goes on to add various entities as "trusted cert"s.
And the final exception I noticed was...
javax.net.ssl.SSLPeerUnverifiedException: peer not authenticated
So could it be a problem with the certificate (or lack of) on my (client) side? But according to this post I thought the client was not required to provide a certificate.
Bottom line is I am not clear if the root of the problem is the SSLv2 Client Hello or the certs or both?

Answer 1

I had a similar problem like you. This is how I solved it. It may not cater to your exact problem, but give it a try.
SSLContextBuilder builder = new SSLContextBuilder();
builder.loadTrustMaterial(null, new TrustSelfSignedStrategy());
SSLConnectionSocketFactory sslsf = new SSLConnectionSocketFactory(builder.build());
CloseableHttpClient httpclient = HttpClients.custom().setSSLSocketFactory(sslsf).build();