Testing REST-based web service over SSL using Jersey Client

To test a REST-based web service, I created a JUnit test that employs the Jersey client classes.  Once I changed the resource location to the https URL, I received the error "javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException: sun.security.validator.ValidatorException: PKIX path building failed: sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilderException: unable to find valid certification path to requested target".  At first, following the ideas on this Stack Overflow thread, I added some code to set up a ClientConfig with a SSLContext for the Jersey Client.  Then I created a new trust store with the server certificate (rather than importing into the default Java trust store) and pointed command-line arguments to this new trust store (and providing its password).  

However I continued to get the same error.  But when I imported the server certificate into the default Java trust store, the error went away.  And when I commented out all the ClientConfig code, and just used this.restWSClient = Client.create(); things continued to work!  It's possible I may not have referenced the new trust store properly but at this moment, it doesn't matter.  

One thing to note, SoapUI, which I previously used to test another web service over https on the same server, did not seem to require any client-side configuration (i.e. set up server certificate in trust store).  Not sure if it simply trusts whatever certificate that it sees. 

Configuring Axis2 to expose web services over https

1. First configure Tomcat to handle https.  This link is useful for this but note for development purposes,when the keytool prompts for “Common Name (CN)”, enter “localhost”
2. Without further configuration, if you attempt to access your web service over https, you will likely get an error about "https is forbidden" thrown from the AxisServlet class
3. Next, configure Axis2 to accept https calls.  Edit the axis2.xml configuration file.  There should already be a section that looks like:
   

       <transportReceiver name="http"
                          class="org.apache.axis2.transport.http.SimpleHTTPServer">
       <parameter name="port">8080</parameter>
   

   Add another section like this:
   

       <transportReceiver name="https"
                          class="org.apache.axis2.transport.http.SimpleHTTPServer">
           <parameter name="port">8443</parameter>
       </transportReceiver>
   

   (Port may vary depending on your Tomcat configuration)
4. Without further configuration, if you try again, you will probably get an error about java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/apache/http/HttpResponseFactory.  This interface can be found in the httpcore library.  If using Maven, include the following in your POM file:
   

           <dependency>
               <groupId>org.apache.httpcomponents</groupId>
               <artifactId>httpcore</artifactId>
               <version>4.0</version>
               <scope>runtime</scope>
           </dependency>
   

5. Now it should be working as it did over regular http