Spring Boot cipher BadPaddingException: Decryption error

Question

I am following an article here, where it described how to use a cipher to encrypt spring boot application properties.

So based on the instruction, I downloaded and placed the JCE Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) files.

Then I created a keystore,

keytool -genkeypair -alias mytestkey -keyalg RSA 
  -dname "CN=Web Server,OU=Unit,O=Organization,L=City,S=State,C=US" 
  -keypass changeme -keystore server.jks -storepass letmein 
  -validity 365

After that, I copied the server.jks file in the Spring project resource folder and add the following properties to the bootstrap.properties file located under resource folder as well.

The content of the bootstrap.properties file looks as below:

encrypt.key-store.location: classpath:/server.jks
encrypt.key-store.password=letmein
encrypt.key-store.alias=mytestkey
encrypt.key-store.secret=changeme

Now when I run the application, I can easily encrypt or decrypt by making POST call to "http://localhost/encrypt" and "http://localhost/decrypt" endpoints.

And I can encrypt or decrypt successfully in the code using the TextEncryptor as well.

However when I encrypt some value and add the encrypted value to the application.properties, as shown below:

messageinfo={cipher}AQBt2RnIRqX1UrHGfvcJpQhfurqbxjGEgeHh....

When I run the application again I get

java.lang.IllegalStateException: Cannot decrypt: key=messageinfo
javax.crypto.BadPaddingException: Decryption error

I am not sure, how I can resolve this issue, any help appreciated.

Answer 1

I have managed to find the issue, it was issue related to Java environment, I had multiple Java SDK installed on my box, My JAVA_HOME (and PATH) was pointing to Java 11 SDK, so when I used the keytool to generate key, it was using Java 11.

However in my Spring Studio, it was pointing to Java 8 SDK, so when I ran the project it used the Java 8 to read and decrypt.

So After:

• Uninstalled Java 11
• Changed the JAVA_HOME (and PATH) to point to Java 8 SDK
• Regenerated key using keytool

It started working fine.