For up-to-date product documentation, see the IBM MobileFirst Foundation Developer Center.

Configure App Transport Security (ATS)

This topic outlines how to configure App Transport Security (ATS) for MobileFirst Server and MobileFirst Analytics containers.

Before you begin

Before you begin, review Requirements for Connecting Using ATS.

ATS configuration does not impact applications connecting from other, non-iOS, mobile operating systems. Other mobile operating systems do not mandate that servers communicate on the ATS level of security but can still communicate with ATS-configured servers.

Before configuring your container image, have the generated certificates ready. The following steps assume that the keystore file ssl_cert.p12 has the personal certificate and ca.crt is the signing certificate.

Procedure

1. Copy the ssl_cert.p12 file to the mfpf-server/usr/security/ folder.
2. Modify the mfpf-server/usr/config/keystore.xml file similar to the following example configuration:

   <server>
      <featureManager>
         <feature>ssl-1.0</feature>
      </featureManager>
      <ssl id="defaultSSLConfig" sslProtocol="TLSv1.2" keyStoreRef="defaultKeyStore" enabledCiphers="TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384" />
      <keyStore id="defaultKeyStore" location="ssl_cert.p12" password="*****" type="PKCS12"/>
   </server>

   • ssl-1.0 is added as a feature in the feature manager to enable the server to work with SSL communication.
   • sslProtocol="TLSv1.2" is added in the ssl tag to mandate that the server communicates only on Transport Layer Security (TLS) version 1.2 protocol.

     More than one protocol can be added. For example, adding sslProtocol="TLSv1+TLSv1.1+TLSv1.2" would ensure that the server could communicate on TLS V1, V1.1, and V1.2. (TLS V1.2 is required for iOS 9 apps.)

   • enabledCiphers="TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384" is added in the ssl tag so that the server enforces communication using only that cipher.

     More ciphers can be added to the list. The server will communicate with the accepted iOS 9 ciphers that have been added to this list.

   • The keyStore tag tells the server to use the new certificates that are created as per the above requirements.

What to do next

The following specific ciphers require Java™ Cryptography Extension (JCE) policy settings and an additional JVM option:

• TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
• TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384
• TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA
• TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
• TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384

If we use these ciphers and use an IBM® Java SDK, we can download the policy files. There are two files: US_export_policy.jar and local_policy.jar. Add both the files to the mfpf-server/usr/security folder and then add the following JVM option to the mfpf-server/usr/env/jvm.options file: Dcom.ibm.security.jurisdictionPolicyDir=/opt/ibm/wlp/usr/servers/worklight/resources/security/.

For development-stage purposes only, we can disable ATS by adding following property to the info.plist file:

<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
  <dict>
   <key>NSAllowsArbitraryLoads</key>
   <true/>
  </dict>

See also ATS and Bitcode in iOS 9.

Parent topic: Securing containers