What is the difference between JNI, JCE and JSSE?

    • What are the JNI, the JCE, and the JSSE, and how does wolfSSL fit into this? To answer the first question:

    • The Java Native Interface (JNI) is a programming interface that allows Java to natively call code written in other languages (C, C++, etc). For example, the JNI allows a Java application to natively call API from a library written in C (like wolfSSL).
    • The Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) is a framework that extends Java’s cryptographic functionality, allowing you to choose stronger or more performant implementations for cryptographic operations such as encryption and hashing.
    • The Java Secure Socket Extension (JSSE) is a framework that implements SSL/TLS protocols, with factories for creating SSL client/server sockets, an SSLEngine for streaming TLS data, etc.

    Both JCE and JSSE follow a provider architecture, allowing users to choose amongst different registered providers by e.g. name, or highest priority.

    To answer the second question, wolfSSL supports two related java packages:

    When wolfJSSE is used, it will provide the implementation for familiar JSSE classes such as SSLSocket, SSLEngine, X509KeyManager, etc. Furthermore, it supports up to TLS 1.3. If you want to try it out, we have plenty of examples on github for both the wolfSSL JNI wrapper, and the wolfJSSE Provider.

    The wolfJCE provider supports algorithms such as SHA-1, SHA-2, PBKDF2, ciphers such as AES-CBC and AES-GCM, and more. Also, when wolfJCE is registered as the highest priority provider, it will be used for the HashDRBG algorithm in Java’s SecureRandom implementation.

    Additionally, a cool feature of JCE providers is they can be signed by a code-signing certificate from Oracle, and thus authenticated by the Oracle JDK. To this end wolfSSL provides pre-signed JAR files so that wolfJCE can be authenticated.

    If you want to learn more about our Java related products or if you have questions about any of the above, contact us at facts@wolfSSL.com or call us at +1 425 245 8247.

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