How to test SSL using Jmeter

Updated

It’s been dark over net and was hard to find any good and consolidated doc about this. I got some information and trying to consolidate all and putting here.

For your brief information A keystore contains private keys, and the certificates with their corresponding public keys. A truststore contains certificates from other parties that you expect to communicate with, or from Certificate Authorities that you trust to identify other parties. If you open any browser you can see truststore of all valid CA installed in browser by default. If you have installed any .pfx certificate for authentication in browser you can see in keystore of browser.

Please follow the steps as needed for you requirement.

Phase 1: If server supports ssl (https). One ways SSL. This is very common SSL where your server have certificate. Gmail is an example of one way SSL when you hit gmail it always opens in https://

Phase 2: Two way SSL where server is configured for two ways SSL. It is next step of one way ssl. Here when server handshake happens it ask for user authentication and one certificate would be installed in your browser.

How to test Phase 1:

It is very simple. You need Jmeter. You need java keytoo.exe which come in all latest version of java under java/jdk/bin directory.

Steps:

         

1.)  Make Sure you have java 1.5 or above version installed and classpath configured

2.)  Download Jmeter (http://jmeter.apache.org/download_jmeter.cgi)

3.)  Unzip  Jmeter

4.)  Open browser, hit the https (SSL) site that you want to test

5.)  If Site is https then the URL first part will be in green color

6.)  Click on Green part

7.)  One pop up will open, Select More Information button

8.)  Next Select Security -> View Certificate ->Details

9.)  Select the Root CA and export it. See picture below for your understanding. (You can save in PEM or .der format)

10.)   Now using java keytool.exe convert exported file to .jks

keytool -importcert -alias mycert -file exportedFile.der  -keystore Convertedtruststore.jks -storepass password

11.)  Now copy this jks file in some directory. I create a cert directory in jmeter and

Keep this file there.

12.)    Now open file system.properties from jmeter/bin

Add this line at that end of the file.

          javax.net.ssl.trustStore=C:/jakarta-jmeter-2.4/Convertedtruststore.jks

(Make sure all other javax.net.ssl.trustStore is commented except what you enter)

13.)    Start jmeter from jmeter/bin/jmeter.bat

14.)    Create thread with server and login details

And you are ready to test SSL using Jmeter.

 

How to test Phase 2:

You need java keytool, jmeter and jetty.jar to test two way ssl. Download /jetty-6.1.22.zip from this location (http://dist.codehaus.org/jetty/jetty-6.1.22/jetty-6.1.22.zip). Unzip this file.

There are lot more other stuff that we will not use for SSL testing.

Look for jetty-6.1.22\jetty-6.1.22\lib\jetty-6.1.22.jar. You just need this jar file from this whole download. Copy this at some location.

Steps:

  

        1.)  Follow the same step to convert truststore to jks mention in Phase1. 

        2.)  Copy your .pfx certificate (cert for login authentication) inside the location where you     

             copied jetty-6.1.22.jar. 

        3.)  Run below command to convert .pfx file to .jks file

java -classpath jetty-6.1.22.jar org.mortbay.jetty.security.PKCS12Import AdminCert.pfx   AdminKeystore.jks

Input keystore passphrase : is the password which you give while installing the cert in browser.

Output keystore passphrase : new password if you want or else give the same old password that you used while installing the cert.

        Example:

        C:\jakarta-jmeter-2.4>java -classpath jetty-6.1.22.jar org.mortbay.jetty.securit

        y.PKCS12Import "ADMIN.pfx"  "Admin_Keystore.jks"

        Enter input keystore passphrase: password123

        Enter output keystore passphrase: password

        Alias 0: a30aa2839c8903cfab4c10a0bf63bb38_ed9f8b24-03cd-4908-9bed-3adc703c5d80

        Adding key for alias a30aa2839c8903cfab4c10a0bf63bb38_ed9f8b24-03cd-4908-9bed-3a

        dc703c5d80 

        4.)  Copy these two .jks file and put it inside some directory in jmeter (Mention in Phase1) 

        5.)  Now open file system.properties from jmeter/bin

       Add this line at that end of the file.

          javax.net.ssl.trustStore=C:/jakarta-jmeter-2.4/Convertedtruststore.jks

javax.net.ssl.keyStore=C:/jakarta-jmeter-2.4/Admin_Keystore.jks

javax.net.ssl.keyStorePassword=password

(Make sure all other javax.net.ssl.trustStore, javax.net.ssl.keyStore, javax.net.ssl.keyStorePassword are commented except what you enter)

   6.)  Start jmeter from jmeter/bin/jmeter.bat 
   7.)  Create thread with server and login details

And you are ready to test SSL using Jmeter.

Hope this will help you to test SSL using jmeter. Let me know if you have any question.

                                                                                                Thanks,

                                                                                                Manoj Rajan