WebLogic, dramatic reduction of TLS sessions creation by rejectClientInitiatedRenegotiation

why the TLS Sessions are constantly invalidated, removed from cache and recreated, discovering that it's WLS SSLConfigUtils.configureClientInitSecureRenegotiation() who initiates this:

at sun.security.ssl.SSLSessionContextImpl.remove(SSLSessionContextImpl.java:132)

at sun.security.ssl.SSLSessionImpl.invalidate(SSLSessionImpl.java:673)

at weblogic.socket.utils.SSLConfigUtils.configureClientInitSecureRenegotiation(SSLConfigUtils.java:27)

at weblogic.socket.JSSEFilterImpl.doHandshake(JSSEFilterImpl.java:135)

at weblogic.socket.JSSEFilterImpl.isMessageComplete(JSSEFilterImpl.java:354)

at weblogic.socket.SocketMuxer.readReadySocketOnce(SocketMuxer.java:976)

at weblogic.socket.SocketMuxer.readReadySocket(SocketMuxer.java:917)

at weblogic.socket.NIOSocketMuxer.process(NIOSocketMuxer.java:599)

at weblogic.socket.NIOSocketMuxer.processSockets(NIOSocketMuxer.java:563)

at weblogic.socket.SocketReaderRequest.run(SocketReaderRequest.java:30)

at weblogic.socket.SocketReaderRequest.execute(SocketReaderRequest.java:43)

at weblogic.kernel.ExecuteThread.execute(ExecuteThread.java:147)

at weblogic.kernel.ExecuteThread.run(ExecuteThread.java:119)

the code responsible is:

public static void configureClientInitSecureRenegotiation(SSLEngine sslEngine, boolean clientInitSecureRenegotiation)

 {

   if (!IS_JDK_CLIENT_INIT_SECURE_RENEGOTIATION_PROPERTY_SET)

   {

     if ((sslEngine != null) && (!sslEngine.getUseClientMode()))

     {

       if (!clientInitSecureRenegotiation) {

         sslEngine.getSession().invalidate();

       }

       sslEngine.setEnableSessionCreation(clientInitSecureRenegotiation);

       if (isLoggable()) {

         SocketLogger.logDebug(clientInitSecureRenegotiation ? "Enabled" : "Disabled TLS client initiated secure renegotiation.");

       }

     }

   }

   else if (isLoggable()) {

     SocketLogger.logDebug("TLS client initiated secure renegotiation setting is configured with -Djdk.tls.rejectClientInitiatedRenegotiation");

   }

 }

so the invalidate() is called only if !clientInitSecureRenegotiation , but it appears that clientInitSecureRenegotiation=isClientInitSecureRenegotiationAccepted is always FALSE





in JSSESocketFactory:

  JSSEFilterImpl getJSSEFilterImpl(Socket connectedSocket, String host, int port)

    throws IOException

  {

    SSLEngine sslEngine = getSSLEngine(host, port);

    return new JSSEFilterImpl(connectedSocket, sslEngine, true);

  }

in JSSEFilterImpl:

public JSSEFilterImpl(Socket sock, SSLEngine engine, boolean clientMode)

    throws IOException

  {

    this(sock, engine, clientMode, false);  // parameter 4 is isClientInitSecureRenegotiationAccepted, THIS IS ALWAYS FALSE, and clientMode is always TRUE

  }

   

  public JSSEFilterImpl(Socket sock, SSLEngine engine, boolean clientMode, boolean isClientInitSecureRenegotiationAccepted)  // this constructor is ultimately invoked

    throws IOException

  {

so the only way to avoid session invalidation is by having IS_JDK_CLIENT_INIT_SECURE_RENEGOTIATION_PROPERTY_SET=false, that is by setting -Djdk.tls.rejectClientInitiatedRenegotiation=false (true or false doesn't seem to matter, as long as the variable is set)


Thanks to Carlo for the excellent analysis.