How do I enable stronger Cipher Suites or encryption in QIE/Java (Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) Unlimited Strength)

Question

I am having TLS handshake problems when accepting a client connection on an HTTP receiver.  The client is trying to use a strong encryption and it doesn't appear that Java supports this encryption.  How do I enable this in Java?

Answer 1

By default java installs without support for this stronger encryption.  To enable stronger encryption Cipher Suites, you will need to install "Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) Unlimited Strength".  The download and install is specific to the version of Java that is running on the server.

Java 7 download: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jce-7-download-432124.html

Java 8 download: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jce8-download-2133166.html

Once you have downloaded the zip file, you will extract the contents.  Both zip files contain 3 individual files, two jar's and a readme.  The readme explains how to install the jar files so that the JVM is able to use the new unlimited strength security policy.

Copy the two jar files to your JRE_HOME/lib/security/ directory.  They will replace the existing jar files in this directory.

Once they are installed, you will need to restart the JVM to take effect.