How to make a SSL self-signed server certificate trusted? I want the ValidatorException going away.

There are several options to make a self-signed server certificate trusted:

• Send your self-signed certificate to a trusted root CA, like GeoTrust, and ask them to sign it for you.
• Add your self-signed certificate to the default trust root CA keystore file in \local\jdk-1.8.0\jre\lib\security\cacerts, before running the client program.
• Add your self-signed certificate to the JVM property: javax.net.ssl.trustStore, when running the client program.

Below is a demonstration of the last option:

1. Open a command window and run SslServerCmd.java on your local host:

\fyicenter>\local\jdk-1.8.0\bin\java SslServerCmd

USAGE: java SslServerCmd [port [clientAuth]]
Listening: port=8080, clientAuth=No

2. Save the server certificate in a keystore file for the client program to use:

\fyicenter>\local\jdk-1.8.0\bin\keytool 
   -importcert -file server.crt -alias server -keystore server_crt.jks

Enter keystore password: fyicenter
Re-enter new password: fyicenter
Owner: CN=fyicenter.com, OU=IT, O=FYIcenter, L=NA, ST=NA, C=FR
Issuer: CN=fyicenter.com, OU=IT, O=FYIcenter, L=NA, ST=NA, C=FR
Serial number: 5ae4a887
Valid from: Sun Jun 25 08:00:08 until: Sat Sep 23 08:00:08
...
Trust this certificate? [no]: yes
Certificate was added to keystore

3. Open another command window and run SslClientCmd.java with javax.net.ssl.trustStore system property set to server_crt.jks on your local host:

\fyicenter>\local\jdk-1.8.0\bin\java 
   -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStore=server_crt.jks SslClientCmd localhost 8080 /index.html

HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 40

No more SSL errors. The client program successfully communicated with the server with all messages encrypted.

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