There should be a way to reorder the JSSE ciphers

[Sean Mullan]

It might be useful to add a more general method to set boolean options 
like this. For example:

public final void setOptions(Set<Option> options)
public final Option getOptions()

SSLParameters.Option is an enum:

public enum SSLParameters.Option {
     ENFORCE_CIPHER_SUITE_ORDER,
     // alternate ways to specify client auth
     NEED_CLIENT_AUTH,
     WANT_CLIENT_AUTH
}

The nice part about this is that you can easily add new options in the 
future and providers can cycle through the set of options and throw an 
exception for any that they don't yet support.

--Sean

On 08/05/2013 06:53 PM, Xuelei Fan wrote:
> Hi,
>
> We are thinking about to support cipher suites preference in JSSE by
> defining new methods in javax.net.ssl.SSLParameters.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------
> +    /**
> +     * Sets whether the cipher suites preference should be honored.
> +     *
> +     * @param on whether local cipher suites order in
> +     *         {@code #getCipherSuites}
> +     *        should be honored during SSL/TLS handshaking.
> +     */
> +    public final void setUseCipherSuitesOrder(boolean on);
>
>
> +    /**
> +     * Returns whether the cipher suites preference should be honored.
> +     *
> +     * @return whether local cipher suites order in
> +               {@code #getCipherSuites}
> +     *         should be honored during SSL/TLS handshaking.
> +     */
> +    public final boolean getUseCipherSuitesOrder();
> ----------------------------------------------------
>
>
> By default, Oracle JSSE provider still honors the client's preference.
> The behavior can be changed by calling
> SSLParameters.setUseCipherSuitesOrder(true) in server side.
>
> We have had the cipher suites preference ordering in client side for
> many years, but we never said how to actually do it in specification and
> JSSE Reference Guide.  With this update, the client side can enforce to
> honor cipher suite preference with the new method,
> SSLParameters.setUseCipherSuitesOrder(true).  Other providers should
> also comply with this specification.
>
> Any feedback are welcome.
>
> Thanks,
> Xuelei
>