CertPathValidatorException : Trust anchor for certificate path not found - Retrofit Android

Question

I am creating an android application which uses https for communication with the server. I am using retrofit and OkHttp for making requests. These works fine for standard http requests. The following are the steps that I followed.

Step 1 : Acquired the cert file from the server using the command

echo -n | openssl s_client -connect api.****.tk:443 | sed -ne '/-BEGIN CERTIFICATE-/,/-END CERTIFICATE-/p' > gtux.cert

Step 2 : Converted the cert to a BKS format by using the following commands

keytool -importcert -v -trustcacerts -file "gtux.cert" -alias imeto_alias -keystore "my_keystore.bks" -provider org.bouncycastle.jce.provider.BouncyCastleProvider -providerpath "bcprov-jdk16-146.jar" -storetype BKS

It asked me for password and the file was successfully created.

Step 3 :

Create a OkHttpClient and use the same for making https requests

public class MySSLTrust {
public static OkHttpClient trustcert(Context context){
    OkHttpClient okHttpClient = new OkHttpClient();
    try {
        KeyStore ksTrust = KeyStore.getInstance("BKS");
        InputStream instream = context.getResources().openRawResource(R.raw.my_keystore);
        ksTrust.load(instream, "secret".toCharArray());
        // TrustManager decides which certificate authorities to use.
        TrustManagerFactory tmf = TrustManagerFactory
                .getInstance(TrustManagerFactory.getDefaultAlgorithm());
        tmf.init(ksTrust);
        SSLContext sslContext = SSLContext.getInstance("TLS");
        sslContext.init(null, tmf.getTrustManagers(), null);
        okHttpClient.setSslSocketFactory(sslContext.getSocketFactory());
    } catch (KeyStoreException | IOException | NoSuchAlgorithmException | CertificateException | KeyManagementException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    return okHttpClient;
}
}

Step 4:

RestAdapter has to be created

RestAdapter.Builder()
.setRequestInterceptor(intercept)
.setEndpoint("https://api.****.tk")
.setClient(new OkClient(this))
.setLogLevel(RestAdapter.LogLevel.FULL)
.setLog(new AndroidLog("RETROFIT"))
.build();

But finally when run the app it is throwing me CertPathValidatorException : Trust anchor for certificate path not found. Please help me to solve this. Thank you.

Other failure attempts : Tried to install the certificate in my Xperia Z2 and it says the file was installed but when i run the app the same exception is thrown.

Error Log Here is the error log that I got on executing...

Error Log

Pasted there so that it will be easy to read..

Answer 1

DISCLAIMER: this answer is from Jul 2015 and uses Retrofit and OkHttp from that time.
Check this link for more info on Retrofit v2 and this one for the current OkHttp methods.

Okay, I got it working using Android Developers guide.

Just as OP, I'm trying to use Retrofit and OkHttp to connect to a self-signed SSL-enabled server.

Here's the code that got things working (I've removed the try/catch blocks):

public static RestAdapter createAdapter(Context context) {
  // loading CAs from an InputStream
  CertificateFactory cf = CertificateFactory.getInstance("X.509");
  InputStream cert = context.getResources().openRawResource(R.raw.my_cert);
  Certificate ca;
  try {
    ca = cf.generateCertificate(cert);
  } finally { cert.close(); }

  // creating a KeyStore containing our trusted CAs
  String keyStoreType = KeyStore.getDefaultType();
  KeyStore keyStore = KeyStore.getInstance(keyStoreType);
  keyStore.load(null, null);
  keyStore.setCertificateEntry("ca", ca);

  // creating a TrustManager that trusts the CAs in our KeyStore
  String tmfAlgorithm = TrustManagerFactory.getDefaultAlgorithm();
  TrustManagerFactory tmf = TrustManagerFactory.getInstance(tmfAlgorithm);
  tmf.init(keyStore);

  // creating an SSLSocketFactory that uses our TrustManager
  SSLContext sslContext = SSLContext.getInstance("TLS");
  sslContext.init(null, tmf.getTrustManagers(), null);

  // creating an OkHttpClient that uses our SSLSocketFactory
  OkHttpClient okHttpClient = new OkHttpClient();
  okHttpClient.setSslSocketFactory(sslContext.getSocketFactory());

  // creating a RestAdapter that uses this custom client
  return new RestAdapter.Builder()
              .setEndpoint(UrlRepository.API_BASE)
              .setClient(new OkClient(okHttpClient))
              .build();
}

To help in debugging, I also added .setLogLevel(RestAdapter.LogLevel.FULL) to my RestAdapter creation commands and I could see it connecting and getting the response from the server.

All it took was my original .crt file saved in main/res/raw. The .crt file, aka the certificate, is one of the two files created when you create a certificate using openssl. Generally, it is a .crt or .cert file, while the other is a .key file.

Afaik, the .crt file is your public key and the .key file is your private key.

As I can see, you already have a .cert file, which is the same, so try to use it.

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PS: For those that read it in the future and only have a .pem file, according to this answer, you only need this to convert one to the other:

openssl x509 -outform der -in your-cert.pem -out your-cert.crt

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PS²: For those that don't have any file at all, you can use the following command (bash) to extract the public key (aka certificate) from any server:

echo -n | openssl s_client -connect your.server.com:443 | \
  sed -ne '/-BEGIN CERTIFICATE-/,/-END CERTIFICATE-/p' > ~/my_cert.crt

Just replace the your.server.com and the port (if it is not standard HTTPS) and choose a valid path for your output file to be created.