SSL in MySQL Connector/J encrypts all data (other than the initial handshake) between the JDBC driver and the server. The performance penalty for enabling SSL is an increase in query processing time between 35% and 50%, depending on the size of the query, and the amount of data it returns.

For SSL Support to work, you must have the following:

You will first need to import the MySQL server CA Certificate into a Java truststore. A sample MySQL server CA Certificate is located in the SSL subdirectory of the MySQL source distribution. This is what SSL will use to determine if you are communicating with a secure MySQL server.

To use Java's keytool to create a truststore in the current directory , and import the server's CA certificate (cacert.pem), you can do the following (assuming that keytool is in your path. The keytool should be located in the bin subdirectory of your JDK or JRE):

shell> keytool -import -alias mysqlServerCACert \
                                  -file cacert.pem -keystore truststore

Keytool will respond with the following information:

Enter keystore password:  *********
Owner: EMAILADDRESS=walrus@example.com, CN=Walrus, 
       O=MySQL AB, L=Orenburg, ST=Some-State, C=RU
Issuer: EMAILADDRESS=walrus@example.com, CN=Walrus, 
       O=MySQL AB, L=Orenburg, ST=Some-State, C=RU
Serial number: 0
Valid from: 
   Fri Aug 02 16:55:53 CDT 2002 until: Sat Aug 02 16:55:53 CDT 2003
Certificate fingerprints:
    MD5:  61:91:A0:F2:03:07:61:7A:81:38:66:DA:19:C4:8D:AB
    SHA1: 25:77:41:05:D5:AD:99:8C:14:8C:CA:68:9C:2F:B8:89:C3:34:4D:6C
Trust this certificate? [no]:  yes
Certificate was added to keystore

You will then need to generate a client certificate, so that the MySQL server knows that it is talking to a secure client:

 shell> keytool -genkey -keyalg rsa \
     -alias mysqlClientCertificate -keystore keystore 

Keytool will prompt you for the following information, and create a keystore named keystore in the current directory.

You should respond with information that is appropriate for your situation:

Enter keystore password:  *********
What is your first and last name?
  [Unknown]:  Matthews
What is the name of your organizational unit?
  [Unknown]:  Software Development
What is the name of your organization?
  [Unknown]:  MySQL AB
What is the name of your City or Locality?
  [Unknown]:  Flossmoor
What is the name of your State or Province?
  [Unknown]:  IL
What is the two-letter country code for this unit?
  [Unknown]:  US
Is <CN=Matthews, OU=Software Development, O=MySQL AB,
 L=Flossmoor, ST=IL, C=US> correct?
  [no]:  y

Enter key password for <mysqlClientCertificate>
        (RETURN if same as keystore password):

Finally, to get JSSE to use the keystore and truststore that you have generated, you need to set the following system properties when you start your JVM, replacing path_to_keystore_file with the full path to the keystore file you created, path_to_truststore_file with the path to the truststore file you created, and using the appropriate password values for each property.

-Djavax.net.ssl.keyStore=path_to_keystore_file
-Djavax.net.ssl.keyStorePassword=*********
-Djavax.net.ssl.trustStore=path_to_truststore_file
-Djavax.net.ssl.trustStorePassword=********* 

You will also need to set useSSL to true in your connection parameters for MySQL Connector/J, either by adding useSSL=true to your URL, or by setting the property useSSL to true in the java.util.Properties instance you pass to DriverManager.getConnection().

You can test that SSL is working by turning on JSSE debugging (as detailed below), and look for the following key events:

...
*** ClientHello, v3.1
RandomCookie:  GMT: 1018531834 bytes = { 199, 148, 180, 215, 74, 12, »
  54, 244, 0, 168, 55, 103, 215, 64, 16, 138, 225, 190, 132, 153, 2, »
  217, 219, 239, 202, 19, 121, 78 }
Session ID:  {}
Cipher Suites:  { 0, 5, 0, 4, 0, 9, 0, 10, 0, 18, 0, 19, 0, 3, 0, 17 }
Compression Methods:  { 0 }
***
[write] MD5 and SHA1 hashes:  len = 59
0000: 01 00 00 37 03 01 3D B6 90 FA C7 94 B4 D7 4A 0C  ...7..=.......J.
0010: 36 F4 00 A8 37 67 D7 40 10 8A E1 BE 84 99 02 D9  6...7g.@........
0020: DB EF CA 13 79 4E 00 00 10 00 05 00 04 00 09 00  ....yN..........
0030: 0A 00 12 00 13 00 03 00 11 01 00                 ...........
main, WRITE:  SSL v3.1 Handshake, length = 59
main, READ:  SSL v3.1 Handshake, length = 74
*** ServerHello, v3.1
RandomCookie:  GMT: 1018577560 bytes = { 116, 50, 4, 103, 25, 100, 58, »
   202, 79, 185, 178, 100, 215, 66, 254, 21, 83, 187, 190, 42, 170, 3, »
   132, 110, 82, 148, 160, 92 }
Session ID:  {163, 227, 84, 53, 81, 127, 252, 254, 178, 179, 68, 63, »
   182, 158, 30, 11, 150, 79, 170, 76, 255, 92, 15, 226, 24, 17, 177, »
   219, 158, 177, 187, 143}
Cipher Suite:  { 0, 5 }
Compression Method: 0
***
%% Created:  [Session-1, SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA]
** SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA
[read] MD5 and SHA1 hashes:  len = 74
0000: 02 00 00 46 03 01 3D B6 43 98 74 32 04 67 19 64  ...F..=.C.t2.g.d
0010: 3A CA 4F B9 B2 64 D7 42 FE 15 53 BB BE 2A AA 03  :.O..d.B..S..*..
0020: 84 6E 52 94 A0 5C 20 A3 E3 54 35 51 7F FC FE B2  .nR..\ ..T5Q....
0030: B3 44 3F B6 9E 1E 0B 96 4F AA 4C FF 5C 0F E2 18  .D?.....O.L.\...
0040: 11 B1 DB 9E B1 BB 8F 00 05 00                    ..........
main, READ:  SSL v3.1 Handshake, length = 1712
...

JSSE provides debugging (to STDOUT) when you set the following system property: -Djavax.net.debug=all This will tell you what keystores and truststores are being used, as well as what is going on during the SSL handshake and certificate exchange. It will be helpful when trying to determine what is not working when trying to get an SSL connection to happen.