How to secure RESTful API (using Tomcat) with https

Question

What are the steps to secure RESTful API (using Tomcat) and switch it to https:// ?

Answer

The general description and instructions how to secure Tomcat are available at https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-7.0-doc/ssl-howto.html

Basic steps to be executed on Aleph server are following:

1. create a keystore file to store the server's private key and self-signed certificate

   $JAVA_HOME/bin/keytool -genkey -alias tomcat -keyalg RSA

The keystore password will be used in the next step in the Tomcat configuration, see "your_password" below.

2. uncomment the "SSL HTTP/1.1 Connector" entry in the template file $aleph_dev/ng/aleph/home/profile/overwrites/thirdparty/tomcat/conf/server.xml.tmpl and modify accordingly:

   <Connector port="8443" protocol="HTTP/1.1" SSLEnabled="true"
               maxThreads="150" scheme="https" secure="true"
               clientAuth="false" sslProtocol="TLS" keystorePass="your_password" />
 

3. execute the script $aleph_dev/ng/aleph/home/system/bin/set_globals.sh:
   jbin
./set_globals.sh
4. when received BUILD SUCCESSFUL, restart Tomcat by executing util W-3-7-9 (it will take some seconds to be accomplished)
5. check that Tomcat is running using:
   curl -k "https://localhost:8443/rest-dlf/record"

When RESTful API should be available ONLY through https, you can block http port on your firewall or you can add a following parameter to $alephe_root/jboss_conf/main.properties:

api.rest.https=Y

Standard http requests will then be answered with HTTP 401 error - "This request requires HTTP authentication."

• Article last edited: 07-Jun-2017