Resolve TLS certificate errors

TLS encryption is required everywhere. This is a compilation of few errors you can expect while configuring your server. openssl command is required to diagnose or manipulate the certificates.

Check the permission on the folder

neo4j might run as a systemd service with a non-priviledged user. The folder "$NEO4J_HOME/certificates/<POLICY_NAME>" specified in your configuration has to be writable by the neo4j user.

Check the private key

The private key has to be in PKCS8 in 3.5.x, PEM format without any passphrase. PKCS12 will be supported in future releases. The command below should return the certificate without prompting for any password.

$ openssl rsa -in private.key -check

You can remove the passphrase with:

$ openssl rsa -in private.key -out private_key_without_passphrase.key

The folder "certificates/<POLICY_NAME>/trusted" can only contains valid certificates in DER format

If you come across signed overrun errors. You might want to review each file including hidden ones in the trusted/revoked folder.

2019-10-24 15:17:36.595+0200 ERROR Failed to start Neo4j: Starting Neo4j failed: Component 'org.neo4j.server.database.LifecycleManagingDatabase@6f36c2f0' was successfully initialized, but failed to start. Please see the attached cause exception "signed overrun, bytes = 918". Starting Neo4j failed: Component 'org.neo4j.server.database.LifecycleManagingDatabase@6f36c2f0' was successfully initialized, but failed to start. Please see the attached cause exception "signed overrun, bytes = 918".
org.neo4j.server.ServerStartupException: Starting Neo4j failed: Component 'org.neo4j.server.database.LifecycleManagingDatabase@6f36c2f0' was successfully initialized, but failed to start. Please see the attached cause exception "signed overrun, bytes = 918".
at org.neo4j.server.exception.ServerStartupErrors.translateToServerStartupError(ServerStartupErrors.java:45)
at org.neo4j.server.AbstractNeoServer.start(AbstractNeoServer.java:187)
at org.neo4j.server.ServerBootstrapper.start(ServerBootstrapper.java:124)
at org.neo4j.server.ServerBootstrapper.start(ServerBootstrapper.java:91)
at com.neo4j.server.enterprise.CommercialEntryPoint.main(CommercialEntryPoint.java:22)
Caused by: org.neo4j.kernel.lifecycle.LifecycleException: Component 'org.neo4j.server.database.LifecycleManagingDatabase@6f36c2f0' was successfully initialized, but failed to start. Please see the attached cause exception "signed overrun, bytes = 918".
at org.neo4j.kernel.lifecycle.LifeSupport$LifecycleInstance.start(LifeSupport.java:473)
at org.neo4j.kernel.lifecycle.LifeSupport.start(LifeSupport.java:111)
at org.neo4j.server.AbstractNeoServer.start(AbstractNeoServer.java:180)
... 3 more
Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: Failed to create trust manager based on: /neo4j/certificates/xxx/trusted
at org.neo4j.kernel.configuration.ssl.SslPolicyLoader.load(SslPolicyLoader.java:222)
at org.neo4j.kernel.configuration.ssl.SslPolicyLoader.create(SslPolicyLoader.java:99)
at org.neo4j.graphdb.factory.module.edition.CommunityEditionModule.<init>(CommunityEditionModule.java:98)
at org.neo4j.kernel.impl.enterprise.EnterpriseEditionModule.<init>(EnterpriseEditionModule.java:55)
at com.neo4j.commercial.edition.CommercialEditionModule.<init>(CommercialEditionModule.java:48)
at org.neo4j.graphdb.facade.GraphDatabaseFacadeFactory.initFacade(GraphDatabaseFacadeFactory.java:181)
at com.neo4j.commercial.edition.CommercialGraphDatabase.<init>(CommercialGraphDatabase.java:20)
at com.neo4j.server.database.CommercialGraphFactory.newGraphDatabase(CommercialGraphFactory.java:40)
at org.neo4j.server.database.LifecycleManagingDatabase.start(LifecycleManagingDatabase.java:90)
at org.neo4j.kernel.lifecycle.LifeSupport$LifecycleInstance.start(LifeSupport.java:452)
... 5 more
Caused by: java.security.cert.CertificateException: Error loading certificate file: /neo4j/certificates/xxx/private.key
at org.neo4j.kernel.configuration.ssl.SslPolicyLoader.createTrustManagerFactory(SslPolicyLoader.java:363)
at org.neo4j.kernel.configuration.ssl.SslPolicyLoader.load(SslPolicyLoader.java:218)
... 14 more
Caused by: java.security.cert.CertificateParsingException: signed overrun, bytes = 918
at sun.security.x509.X509CertImpl.parse(X509CertImpl.java:1788)
at sun.security.x509.X509CertImpl.<init>(X509CertImpl.java:195)
at sun.security.provider.X509Factory.engineGenerateCertificate(X509Factory.java:102)
at java.security.cert.CertificateFactory.generateCertificate(CertificateFactory.java:339)
at org.neo4j.kernel.configuration.ssl.SslPolicyLoader.createTrustManagerFactory(SslPolicyLoader.java:358)
... 15 more
2019-10-24 15:17:36.597+0200 INFO Neo4j Server shutdown initiated by request

Self-signed certificate

You can generate a key and a public certificate with the following command.

$ openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout private_key.pem -out public_cert.pem -days 30

You need to set the `dbms.ssl.policy.<policyname>.trust_all=true in neo4j.conf. Please note that this is insecure.

CA signed certificate

All certificates should be in DER encoded format in the trusted directory. The certificate chain has to be complete to allow the communication.

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