This tutorial explains the use of the Java Secure Socket Extension (JSSE) packages included in JDK 1.4. The complexity of using JSSE is not in the communication itself, but rather in the configuration. Before you can run your client/server software, you must create the keys needed by the encryption algorithms, and these keys must be properly loaded by your software before it can create secure sockets.

This tutorial provides cookbook-style instructions for creating and installing JSSE encryption keys in a client/server application environment. When you have completed this tutorial, you will know how to easily convert any existing client/server application to use encryption, as well as how to create a secure application from scratch.