SSL/Apache SOAP 2.2

[Greg Brown <gb...@molecular.com>]

Question regarding Apache SOAP and SSL: if I am running the SOAP rpcrouter
servlet in an app server behind a web server that supports SSL, do I need to
do anything special to enable SSL in the SOAP servlet? My assumption is that
I should not need to. I assume that the web server (iPlanet 4.1, in this
case) would handle the encryption/decryption and simply forward the
decrypted HTTP request to the SOAP servlet (vice versa for the servlet
response). If this is true, then the servlet need not be SSL-aware.
 
However, I have not found this to be the case. When I access the rpcrouter
servlet using standard HTTP, everything works fine (I have successfully
tested the connection using the stockquote sample that comes with the SOAP
2.2 SDK). However, when I attempt to connect to the same service using
HTTPS, I get the following error:
 
https://ninthgate.tvisions.com/soap/servlet/rpcrouter
<https://ninthgate.tvisions.com/soap/servlet/rpcrouter> 
[SOAPException: faultCode=SOAP-ENV:Client; msg=Error opening socket: null;
targetException=java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Error opening socket:
null]

I don't understand what would cause the error. As long as it is performing
all interaction with the client using the doPost() method and the response
object, why would the servlet itself care about the protocol? I haven't yet
looked at the source for the servlet, but I plan to do so this morning. Any
insight anyone can offer in the meantime is much appreciated. 
 
My app server configuration is as follows:
 
iPlanet WS 4.1
Dynamo Application Server 5.1.1
Apache SOAP 2.2 and all required libraries
 
The SOAP servlet is running in the Dynamo server, not the iPlanet server.
 
Thanks for your help.
 
Greg Brown
Sr. Software Engineer
gbrown@molecular.com <ma...@molecular.com> 
Molecular.
(617) 218-6500