EDI – Electronic Data Interchange

MDN - Message Disposition Notification

To be able to run the OpenAS2, you will need:

1. 1.Unzip the downloaded OpenAS2 package into a suitable location, which we will call <install_dir>.  

   NOTE: Typical values for  <install_dir> locations  are /opt/OpenAS2 under Linux®/Unix or C:\OpenAS2 under Microsoft® Windows®.
    

2. 2.For the encryption and certificate management to work correctly, you must have the proper JCE policy files installed in your version of Java (see system requirements above). The downloaded zip archive contains the two files local_policy.jar and US_export_policy.jar. Install them into your Java location under <JAVA_HOME>/lib/security. Back up the existing files before installing these new ones. There are numerous detailed articles on the web for installing these files if you need more information. 

The file structure will look something like the figure below without the data and logs folders which are created automatically by the server when it starts based on configuration if they do not exist.

The default settings for the Java virtual machine in the startup script (start_openas2.sh or start_openas2.bat) will work for installations on most machines for low volume/small file size transfers. However, if your system will be transferring large files you will need to increase memory allocation. If you expect to support very high AS2 traffic you will need to increase memory allocation and possibly tune the garbage collector to get reasonable performance.

How much you can increase memory allocation to Java will depend on how much RAM is installed on the system running OpenAS2 and how many other processes will be running concurrently that will also require memory.  Most systems deploy with at least 8GB RAM these days so increasing memory allocation from the default amount in the startup script should not cause adverse affects to the system.

To increase memory allocation you need to increase the heap space. This is set using the -Xmx option. You could increase this from the 384m (m = MB) default setting to 1g or 2g to get good performance for large files or busy systems and for very large files given enough RAM you can set it to 6g or 8g. Search for “-Xmx” in the startup script and adjust accordingly.

For garbage collection you may want to allocate a more appropriate garbage collector than the default parallel collector that is the default in Java. In Java 7 and up, the G1 collector is ideal if you use large heap space allocation. To enable it add this to the command line parameter:

 –XX:+UseG1GC  

This section explains the details of the configuration files and how they link together.

The OpenAS2 server uses four files to configure and execute:

1. 1.config.xml – configures the application 

2. 2.partnerships.xml – configures the partners 

3. 3.as2_certs.p12 – stores the PKCS12 certificates for all partners 

4. 4.commands.xml – stores the commands that the application will support. This file should not be modified 

IMPORTANT: A restart of the application is required to load any configuration changes.

The folder containing the config.xml file defines the home configuration parameter that can be used to reference other files on the file system relative to a known base folder in the app. This is done by encapsulating home in percentage signs (%home%). All files can be referenced relative to this parameter and it is how the default config.xml file defines the location of other configuration and data file locations used by the OpenAS2 application.

The file named “config.xml” configures the modules that will be activated by the AS2 server when it starts up. This file can be located anywhere within the disk subsystem on which the OpenAS2 application runs as it is passed into the application as a startup parameter.

Some of the key configuration settings in the config.xml file are:

• •define the modules to be activated in the OpenAS2 application 

• •override module default classes in the AS2 code base 

• •enhance or change behaviour of modules and the inputs and outputs of the modules. 

• •define the location of the certificates keystore and password 

• •define the location of the partnerships configuration file 

• •specify the listening ports 

See appendices for a detailed definition of the config.xml file structure.

There are 2 listening ports for inbound connections (see partnerships.xml config for outbound connections) used for:

1. 1.receiving messages and synchronous MDN's – default port number 10080 

2. 2.receiving asynchronous MDN's - default port number 10081  

The port numbers are arbitrary and defaulted to a number above 1024 that does not require root access to listen on (normally on Unix type systems any port below 1024 requires root access). The port values are important to the partner you will be communicating with if they will be sending AS2 messages to your system. For outbound only systems, it is only necessary to have a listener for asynchronous MDN's if using that mechanism for MDN's.

Each module has a number of attributes that can be configured on the module element to control and change how the module behaves.

The certificate store password is stored as an XML attribute “password” on the <certificates> element. This can be overridden using the system property “org.openas2.cert.Password”. For improved security, it may not be desired to store the password in the XML file.

This can be passsed into the application by adding the following to the java command:

• •-Dorg.openas2.cert.Password=myCertificateStorePassword 

This can be set by using an additional parameter to the batch script file so that it can be set as part of invoking the script. The UNIX shell script will support the password as a parameter. The Windows bat file will need to be enhanced.

When failures occur transferring a message to a trading partner, the system will automatically try to resend the message. By default the system will retry indefinitely.

Restricting the retry attempts can be done at the processor level (applies to all partnerships configured on the server) and at the partnership level. Partnership configuration will override processor settings.

To define the processor level retry count, set the “resend_max_retries” attribute on the processor element to a valid integer.

Example snippet:

 <processor classname="org.openas2.processor.DefaultProcessor"

     pendingMDN="%home%/../data/pendingMDN3"

     pendingMDNinfo="%home%/../data/pendinginfoMDN3"

            resend_max_retries="10" >

To define the partnership level retry count, set an attribute element on the partnership with name attribute value as “resend_max_retries” and a value attribute element to a valid integer.

Example snippet:

 <partnership name="OpenAS2A-to-OpenAS2B">

  <attribute name="resend_max_retries" value="3"/>

  <sender name="OpenAS2A"/>

The file named partnerships.xml configures all the information relating to the partners you will be exchanging data with. See the appendix for information on the structure of this file.

It is important to keep in mind that the word partner refers to any entity specified as a recipient or sender of AS2 messages and includes your own company that you might be configuring the application for.

Each partner will require the following entries in the file:

• •a <partner> element – key information defining the partner 

• •a <partnership> element  - key information for defining a partnership between 2 partners
  Separate <partnership> elements are required for inbound and outbound data for a specific partner pairing.
  NOTE:It is necessary to have 2 elements even if data transfer is unidirectional.  

The <partner> element requires 3 attributes to enable AS2 partner identification:

1. 1.partner name – this is the key to connect partnerships to a partner definition  

2. 2.AS2 identifier – this is the key for identifying the target/source partner and is included in AS2 message headers to allow the receiving partner to identify the source of the message and verify the target partner for the AS2 message. It is also used by the general directory polling module to look up the partner names and hence the partnership definition where the as2_id of the sender and receiver are part of the transferred file name. 

3. 3.X.509 certificate alias – identifies the alis of the certificates for this partner in the keystore. The encryption and decryption of messages requires the partners public or private key as appropriate 

The <partnership> element identifies a specific direction of AS2 message transfer from one partner to another. The “name” attribute on the <partnership> element is not important but should be used to clearly identify the intended use of the partnership definition. It is suggested the name value uses the names of the source and destination partners something like xxx-to-yyy.

The <partnership> element encapsulates a number of child elements that are necessary to properly configure a partnership:

• •<sender name=”xxx”> - identifies the sending partner definition such that xxx must match the “name” attribute of a <partner> element 

• •<receiver name=”yyy”> - identifies the receiving partner definition such that yyy must match the “name” attribute of a <partner> element 

• •<as2_url> - a fully qualified URI that provides the connection string to the remote partner for sending AS2 messages. If sending to another OpenAS2 server then the port number must match the value configured in the config.xml file of the remote OpenAS2 server. 

• •<as2_mdn_to> - neccesary if an MDN response is required and can be any random string but is most commonly configured with an email address 

As of version 1.3.7, the default content transfer encoding uses “binary” if not explicitly overwritten in the configuration. The default can be changed using the “content_transfer_encoding” attribute in the partnership.xml file. If you experience issues with failing to verify a partners AS2 inbound message because the message contains CR/LF data in it then you should switch to using “binary” for the transfer encoding. The sample partnership file sets the transfer encoding to “binary” for both partners.

The currently supported encoding algorithms are:

• •MD5 

• •SHA1 

• •SHA224 

• •SHA256 

• •SHA384 

• •SHA512 

• •CAST5 

• •3DES 

• •IDEA 

• •RC2_CBC 

• •AES128 (CBC mode) 

• •AES192 (CBC mode) 

• •AES256 (CBC mode) 

• •AES256_WRAP 

The application supports inbound compression automatically. There is no configuration for this option. To enable outbound compression requires setting “compression_type” attribute on the partnership definition for the outbound configuration.  The only supported compression/decompression at this time is “ZLIB”. The default is no compression of sent messages.

By default compression will occur on the message body part prior to signing. The compression can be configured to occur after signing using the “compression_mode” attribute on the partnership definition for the outbound configuration. Set the attribute to “compress-after-signing” to enable this.

See partnership.xml appendix for configuration details.

Mime headers can be added to the outermost Mime body part for outbound messages and additionally added to the HTPP headers. The outermost Mime body part will depend on configuration of the partnership and could be the compressed, signed or encrypted part. In the case of the encrypted part being the outermost mime body part, the HTTP headers will not be visible until after decryption of the body part since encryption protects the content and the headers.

Custom headers can be added as statically defined name/value pairs in a partnership attribute where the name and the value are separated by a colon. Multiple static headers are added using a semi-colon separated list between each name/value pair. The attribute name for this is “custom_mime_headers” and a sample entry of 2 static headers is shown below:

<attribute name="custom_mime_headers" value="X-CustomRoute: X1Z34Y ; X-CustomShape:oblong"/>

        Note that spaces before or after the “;” and “:” separators will be excluded.

Dynamic headers require 2 attributes to configure their behaviour and there are 2 different modes of  operation for extracting the value(s) for the defined header(s) from the file name:

1. 1.delimiter mode 

2. 2.regular expression mode 

 Delimiter mode is relatively simple and does not require any special knowledge but regular expression mode may require someone with regular expression skills. Regular expression mode provides far greater flexibility for extracting the value(s) from a file name where specific character sequences or character counts are required.

Both modes use an attribute named “custom_mime_header_names_from_filename” to enter the list of header names but the format for the two are slightly different. The second attribute required has a different name for each of the modes, “custom_mime_header_name_delimiters_in_filename” for delimiter mode and “custom_mime_header_names_regex_on_filename” for regular expression mode.

IMPORTANT: if both delimiter mode and regular expression mode attributes are entered into a partnership then delimiter mode will be chosen irrespective.

In delimiter mode, the values in the file name are separated by specifiying one or more delimiters and the entire file name is parsed into a list of values using the delimiter(s) defined. In order to accommodate file names that have more than just the values required for the custom headers, the list of header names are defined with a prefix that designates if the value in the list will be used as a header value or not. For an entry to be added as a header it must have the prefix “header.”. Any other prefix will cause that entry to be ignored. There must be as many header names defined as there are string sequences that would result from splitting the file name string by the delimiter(s) otherwise the system will throw an error.

Below is an example of a delimiter based configuration.

<attribute name="custom_mime_header_names_from_filename"

        value="header.X-Header1,header.Y-Header2, junk.extraStuff"/>

        <attribute name="custom_mime_header_name_delimiters_in_filename" value="-_"/>

Using this configuration, given a file name ABC-123-INVOICES.csv there would be 2 headers added as:
X-Header1   value ABC
Y-Header2   value 123

If the file name was ABC-123-H4FT_INVOICES.csv the system would throw an error as there would be 4 string sequences extracted so you could fix this by appending junk.moreStuff to the “custom_mime_headers_from_filename” attribute.

Another example of delimiter mode in the partnership:

<attribute name="custom_mime_header_names_from_filename"

        value="header.X-Header1, other.string1,header.Y-Header2"/>

        <attribute name="custom_mime_header_name_delimiters_in_filename" value="-"/>

Using this configuration, given a file name ABC-123_TEST-INVOICES.csv there would be 2 headers added as:
X-Header1   value ABC
Y-Header2   value INVOICES

Regular expression based mode uses Java regular expressions and requires that the regular expression is constructed in grouping mode where the number of groups in the regular expression exactly matches the number of header names in the “custom_mime_header_names_from_filename” attribute. The regular expression will be used to parse the file name to extract the values for the defined names in the attribute named “custom_mime_header_names_regex_on_filename”. Regular expressions can become extremely complex and this document will show some simple examples but there are many sites that provide regular expression tutorials if you need a complicated soultion.

An example for a regular expression mode configuration is shown below:

<attribute name="custom_mime_header_names_from_filename" value="X-Header1,Y-Header2"/>

        <attribute name="custom_mime_header_names_regex_on_filename" value="([^-]*)-([^.]*).csv"/>

Using this configuration, given a file name ABC-123-INVOICES.csv there would be 2 headers added as:
X-Header1   value ABC
Y-Header2   value 123-INVOICES

If the file name was ABC-123-H4FT_INVOICES.csv there would be 2 headers added as:
X-Header1   value ABC
Y-Header2   value 123—HFT_INVOICES

If the file name was ABC-123-H4FT_INVOICES.txt or ABC_123.csv the system would throw an error since there would be no match.

Another example for a regular expression mode configuration is shown below:

<attribute name="custom_mime_header_names_from_filename" value="X-Header1,Y-Header2"/>

        <attribute name="custom_mime_header_names_regex_on_filename" value="([^-]*)-([^.]*).csv"/>

Using this configuration, given a file name ABC-123-INVOICES.csv there would be 2 headers added as:
X-Header1   value ABC
Y-Header2   value 123-INVOICES

The following attribute set to  value of “true” will additionally add the headers to the HTTP headers for both static and dynamic header mechanisms:

<attribute name="add_custom_mime_headers_to_http" value="true"/>

Partnership attributes can be added to the partnership definition based on parsing the file name of the document to be sent  using a regular expression. Dynamic attributes require 2 partnership attributes to configure their behaviour for extracting the value(s) for the defined attribute(s) from the file name.

1. 1.“attribute_names_from_filename”  - when added to a partnership it must contain a list of comma separated attribute names 

2. 2.“attribute_names_regex_on_filename” - defines the regular expression  

The extracted name/value pairs can then be referenced in config using the format:

$attributes.<attribute name>$

Regular expressions uses Java regular expressions and requires that the regular expression is constructed in grouping mode where the number of groups in the regular expression exactly matches the number of attribute names in the “attribute_names_from_filename” attribute.  Regular expressions can become extremely complex and this document will show some simple examples but there are many sites that provide regular expression tutorials if you need a complicated solution.

An example for a regular expression mode configuration is shown below:

<attribute name="attribute_names_from_filename" value="X-attribute1,Y-attribute2"/>

        <attribute name="attribute_names_regex_on_filename" value="([^-]*)-([^.]*).csv"/>

Using this configuration, given a file name ABC-123-INVOICES.csv there would be 2 attributes added as:

X-attribute1   value ABC
Y-attribute2   value 123-INVOICES

If the file name was ABC-123-H4FT_INVOICES.csv there would be 2 attributes added as:

X-attribute1   value ABC
Y-attribute2   value 123—HFT_INVOICES

If the file name was ABC-123-H4FT_INVOICES.txt or ABC_123.csv the system would throw an error since there would be no match.

Another example for a regular expression mode configuration is shown below:

<attribute name="attribute_names_from_filename" value="X-attribute1,Y-attribute2"/>

        <attribute name="attribute_names_regex_on_filename" value="([^-]*)-([^.]*).csv"/>

Using this configuration, given a file name ABC-123-INVOICES.csv there would be 2 attributes added as:

X-attribute1   value ABC
Y-attribute2   value 123-INVOICES

The above attributes could be referenced in config to set a more dynamic subject using something like this:

        <attribute name="subject" value="Target product: $attributes.X-attribute1$ Sequence Count: $attributes.Y-attribute2$"/>

This would produce a subject looking like this:

 Target product: ABC Sequence Count: 123-INVOICES

NOTE: SHA1 certificates are no longer supported and are rapidly being phased out so you should use SHA256 for all partners that do support SHA256 certificates.

The certificate store used by default is a PKCS12 key store and stores all X.509 certificates for all trading partners. The location and name of the certificate keystore is defined in “filename” attribute of the “certificates” element in the config.xml file. The default deployment uses the file <installDir>/config/as2_certs.p12

The key store must contain the private key of your own X.509 certificate and the public key for each of your trading partners X.509 certificates.

The certificates must be stored with the matching alias as specified in the partner definition of each partner in the partnership.xml file.

There is a shell file to help generating certificates: bin/gen_p12_key_par.sh

In the case where you need to support multiple certificates such as when one partner needs SHA1 and another needs SHA256 or when you want to set up different certificates per partner, follow these steps below.

The key to supporting multiple certificates is ensuring you use a separate as2_id and x509_alias attribute.

In the partnership.xml you would add another partner element pointing to a different certificate.

If for example you have a <partner> element definition for your company as below:

<partner name="MyCompany" as2_id="MyCompany_OID" x509_alias="MyCompanyCert" email="me@MyCompany.com"/>

For each additional certificate you support, you then add another <partner> element. If for instance you have SHA1 already deployed and working with existing partners and you create a SHA256 certificate to support a new partner, you add a new <partner> element something like this:

<partner name="MyCompany256" as2_id="MyCompany2_OID" x509_alias="MyCompanyCert256" email="me@MyCompany.com"/>

In your partnership definition for the partners using the SHA256 certificate you set the "sender" and "receiver" attribute as appropriate to point to the correct partner definition ("MyCompany256" per the example above) along with changing the SHA1 to SHA256 in the other relevant attributes as shown in the snippet below.

   <partnership name="MyCompany256-to-MyPartner256">

        <sender name="MyCompany256"/>

        <receiver name="MyPartner256"/>

        <attribute name="protocol" value="as2"/>

        ...

    </partnership>

Import the new certificate into the existing p12 keystore using the alias as defined in the x509_alias attribute above ( "MyCompany2Cert256" ) and send the partner the matching public key for the new certificate along with the as2_id "MyCompany256_OID" that they will need to use so you can differentiate your target definition in the partnership file containing the SHA1 certificate from the SHA256 certificate.  See the previous section for importing certificates into your existing keystore.

Logging supports 6 levels that can be controlled by configuration. The logging output can be directed to to multiple destinations including:

• •System console 

• •Local log files 

• •Email – log messages are emailed to a configured email address. 

• •Socket – log messages are writeen to a socket supporting remote logging 

All log classes can be overridden or custom logger classes can be coded and included via confioguration

The logging system supports the use of either or both the commons-logging.properties file or a file named openas2log.properties to control the logging level. Properties in openas2log.properties will override commons-logging.properties entries. There is a commons-logging.properties file in the bin directory which is part of the classpath specified in the script file described in the section on running the application.

The properties in the openas2log.properties file should be prefixed by “org.openas2.logging.”

The following are the logging levels supported by the application in order of lowest(finest) to highest:

"TRACE", "DEBUG", "INFO", "WARN", "ERROR", "FATAL"

The logging levels are turned off by specifying the level you want on and all other levels higher than that level will also be turned on.

The default level is INFO and therefore WARN, ERROR and FATAL are also turned on by default.

By adding a property level=DEBUG in the common-logging.properties file will result in DEBUG logging being enabled along with INFO, WARN, ERROR and FATAL

The same can be achieved by adding org.openas2.logging.openas2log.level=DEBUG in the openas2log.properties file.

The email logger uses the javax mail API to send ERROR level log messages. Some of the basic email configuration parameters are supported via config in the config.properties file as indicated in the appendix. The rest of the mail properties as listed in the Javamail API  can be set by passing them as system properties on the command line by modifying the start-openas2.sh or start-openas2.bat file as appropriate or using the javax.mail.properties.file attribute on the email logger element.

The configuration values can overwrite each other depending on the source of the configurtion value. The order of priority is as follows:

1. 1.values set in the logger element attributes  

2. 2.entries in the file identified by javax.mail.properties.file  

3. 3.entries using system properties 

For example, to pass the port for connection you could add this to the command line: -Dmail.smtp.port=529

To point to a properties file containing all the relevant information you would add something like this:

                <logger classname="org.openas2.logging.EmailLogger"

                        javax.mail.properties.file="%home%/java.mail.properties"

                        from="openas2"

                        …

MDN's can be sent synchronously or asynchronously. By default the system will use synchronous MDN mechanism. Per the AS2 specification, an MDN will only be sent on receipt of an AS2 message if the “Disposition-Notification-To“ header is present in the received message with a non-empty value. Although this value is specified to be configured with an email address, it is not utilized for any purpose in the AS2 protocol other than to indicate an MDN is required so can in fact be any random string. To set the  “Disposition-Notification-To“ header in an outbound message, the “as2_mdn_to” attribute must be set on the partnership.

The other attribute that must be set is the “as2_mdn_options”. This defines the encryption algorithm and other MDN settings as specified by the AS2 protocol and the value entered for this attribute will be sent in the “Disposition-Notification-Options” header of the AS2 message. Generally changing the encryption algorithm to suit the trading partner should be sufficient on this attribute.

In order to specify an asynchronous MDN response from a partner requires setting the following attribute on the partnership element in the partnership configuration:

Sending an asynchronous MDN  requires the “AsynchMDNSenderModule”  module. This module declaration does not require any parameters other than the class and can be entered as shown below as a child member of the processor node in the config file:

<module classname="org.openas2.processor.sender.AsynchMDNSenderModule" />

HTTPS transport using SSL is configured separately for inbound and outbound connectivity.

Configuration for inbound is in the config.xml file. The requirements for receiving AS2 files using HTTPS are:

• •JKS keystore containing the SSL certificate 

• •an appropriately configured As2ReceiverModule module element 

The key attributes that configure HTTPS are:

• •protocol="https" 

• •ssl_keystore="%home%/ssl_certs.jks" – points to the JKS certificate keystore 

• •ssl_keystore_password="<passwordforkeystorefile" 

• •ssl_protocol="TLS"  

See the appendix for details on the attributes.

The partnership definition for the connection URL will also have to be set to the appropriate host name.

The key attributes that configure HTTPS are:

• •as2_url 

• •as2_mdn_to (only if MDN is required) 

If asynchronous MDN is in use and requires HTTPS then a As2MDNReceiverModule module needs to be configured in the same way as for the As2ReceiverModule class above.

If the target system being connected to uses self signed certificates, the following system property will have to be passed to the application in the java command line with a comma separated list (no spaces before or after comma) of the “Common Name” (CN) in the self signed certificate that will be returned by the target system:

-Dorg.openas2.cert.TrustSelfSignedCN=<Common.Name1>,<Common.Name2>,…

As of version 2.1.0 the system will track key events in the message transmission and reception process and write them to an embedded H2 database. The database default location is:

<install_dir>/config/DB

The database can be accessed by a JDBC client whilst the OpenAS2 app is running using the parameters shown in the table below.

There is a file named db_ddl.sql file located in the config folder that can be used to create the necessary table structure if your DB becomes corrupted. The simplest way to recreate the database table is using this command whilst OpenAS2 is running:

java -cp [path to OpenAS2 install]/lib/h2-1.4.192.jar org.h2.tools.RunScript -user sa -password OpenAS2 -url jdbc:h2:tcp://localhost:9092/openas2 -script [path to OpenAS2 install]/config/db_ddl.sql

The above is for the version of H2 deployed with OpenAS2 version 2.1.0. If you use a different version of H2 then change the jar name to reflect this.

OpenAS2 can be started from the command line in any operating system that supports Java or can be configured to run as a daemon using the appropriate mechanisms for the operating system.

The default deployment for OpenAS2 has a console logger enabled which means that all logging will be visible in the command line window that OpenAS2 is started from. The server can also be configured from the command line once the application is running by simply typing in commands once it has started. Because the logging will appear in the window it may make command entry difficult if there are active transfers at the time you try to enter commands and it may be desirable to switch off the console logger if you have no need for it.

The default install of the application is as in the figure below from a windows PC.

There are 2 executable script files in the bin folder of the AS2 application root as indicated in the screenshot above:

1. 1.start-openas2.sh – for UNIX based systems 

2. 2.start-openas2.bat – for Microsoft Windows based system 

It is not necessary to modify these files for the default install to work. If you choose to put the config.xml file in a different location than the default then you will need to edit the appropriate script file and set the path to the config.xml file appropriately.

Simply execute the script file and an AS2 server will start up. It will create the following folders along with sub folders when it starts assuming no change to the default config:

• •logs – contains the norml program logging   

• •data – contains all the transferred files and any AS2 specific headers associated with AS2 transfers. This folder will have a number of sub folders for outbound and inbound files for different partners 

In Microsoft Windows you should be able to double click the start-openas2.bat file and a command window will open as below.

For Unix based systems such as Linux and OSX, open a terminal window and change directory to the “bin” folder of the install. The start_openas2.sh file should have execute permissions in which case simply type the name and press enter. If no execute permissions are set, either set the execute permission as needed or use “sh” to run the script:

/opt/OpenAS2:>sh opensas2.sh

The output in a Unix based system will be identical to that in a Windows based system.

After startup of the OpenAS2 application, no command prompt is shown in the command line window initially but you can enter a command or just press <ENTER> to get a visible prompt. Typing ? Will show possible commands. Each command will list sub commands they require if you try to enter them without the appropriate parameters.

 A screenshot showing command entry is shown below.

Command Entry

Although the application will launch as a daemon without any change to the default config, it is recommended that the following configuration changes are made to reduce unnecessary processing by modules that are redundant in this mode and filling the system logs with unwanted logging:

1. 1.Remove the console logger – remove the element in the <loggers> element as shown below
   <logger classname="org.openas2.logging.ConsoleLogger"/> 

2. 2.Remove the stream command processor in the <commandProcessors> element as shown below
   <commandProcessor classname="org.openas2.cmd.processor.StreamCommandProcessor"/> 

A sample “openas2.d” is provided in the bin directory of the install package. It provides support for starting and stopping the OpenAS2 application as a daemon using the init.d mechanism. Use the appropriate tool for the NIX operating system you are using to install the script in the /etc/init.d folder and create the soft links to launch the OpenAS2 application when the system starts.

First modify the openas2.d file to reflect the path where you have installed OpenAS2 then follow one of the options below.

On Redhat based systems as root:

$ cp <srcDir>/bin/openas2.d /etc/init.d/

$ chkconfig --add openas2.d

$ chkconfig --level 2345 openas2.d on

On Debian/Ubuntu based systems as root:

$ cp <srcDir>/bin/openas2.d /etc/init.d/

$ chmod 750 /etc/init.d/openas2.d

$ update-rc openas2.d defaults

A sample file openas2.service is provided in the bin folder of the install package.

First modify the openas2.d file to reflect the path where you have installed OpenAS2 then follow the steps below.

$ cp <srcDir>/bin/openas2.service /etc/systemd/system/

$ systemctl daemon-reload

$ systemctl enable openas2.service

Test that it works using the below commands:

 
$ systemctl enable openas2.service
$ systemctl start openas2.service
$ systemctl stop openas2.service

The default configuration of the OpenAS2 configuration is set up for two partners named “OpenAS2A” and “OpenAS2B”. The system will effectively send messages to itself between the 2 configured partners. You can simply start the OpenAS2 server without any changes and then copy a file into the appropriate outbox as defined by the relevant module using the  org.openas2.processor.receiver.AS2DirectoryPollingModule classes “outboxdir” attribute to send  the file to the desired partner.

The default configuration provides for 2 partners OPENAS2A and OPENAS2B and will create outbox folders <installDir>/data/toOpenAS2A and <installDir>/data/toOpenAS2B for explicitly targeting a partner for any file dropped in one of those folders.

This section provides some help in identifying issues with AS2 transfers or configuration and execution of the OpenAS2 application. Experience has shown that not all systems properly implement the AS2 specification or have an interpretation of the specification that is different to the OpenAS2 default implementation. To accommodate these differences, the OpenAS2 application has some configuration parameters to change the default behaviour on a per partnership basis that may help to accommodate the implementation anomalies for various other AS2 systems.

Some systems (including OpenAS2 prior to V1.3.7) do not canonicalize the MimeBodyPart as specified in the RFC when content transfer encoding is not “binary” (the OpenAS2 default is “binary” but can be set to other values using the “content_transfer_encoding” attribute on the prtnership). This manifests as errors that cause signature authentication failure that may specifically mention a mismatched MIC. To cater for this set the following attribute on the partnership:

<attribute name="prevent_canonicalization_for_mic" value="true"/>

If using a content transfer encoding algorithm other than “binary” results in authentication failures, try setting the attribute on the partnership:

<attribute name="content_transfer_encoding" value="binary"/>

Some AS2 systems do not support RFC6211.

The partner system will most likely not provide detailed information that this OID is the issue unless you request detailed logging from the partner but will manifest as authentication failures of some sort. Currently known systems that do not support this are IBM Sterling Integrator.

To disable the OID from being sent add this attribute to the partnership (from a security point of view to include it wherever possible as it plugs a security issue in CMS signed messages):

<attribute name="remove_cms_algorithm_protection_attrib" value="true"/>

Sometimes a partner uses a certificate that has intermediate providers not registered in your Java security keystore. Generally this will be manifested by an exception something like this:

javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException: sun.security.validator.ValidatorException: PKIX path building failed: sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilderException: unable to find valid certification path to requested target

 at sun.security.ssl.Alerts.getSSLException(Alerts.java:192)

 at sun.security.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.fatal(SSLSocketImpl.java:1917)

 at sun.security.ssl.Handshaker.fatalSE(Handshaker.java:301)

 at sun.security.ssl.Handshaker.fatalSE(Handshaker.java:295)

 at sun.security.ssl.ClientHandshaker.serverCertificate(ClientHandshaker.java:1369)

In this case you will need to set up a local trusted certificate provider keystore containing the root or chained (intermediate) certificates that are missing.

Steps:

1. 1.Run the class embedded in the OpenAS2 library jar:
   
   java -cp <pathToOpenAS2LibFolder>/openas2-server.jar CheckCertificate <host name>[:port] <localKeystoreFile> [passphrase] 

   "<host name>[:port]" should be the same as what you have in the partnerships "as2_url" attribute EXCLUDING the "https://" 

1. "<localKeystoreFile>" is the name you want to give to your local keystore (e.g jssechaincerts)

   "[passphrase]" is the password for the keystore - it will default to "changeit" if you do not provide one`

   NOTE: If there is no existing keystore you want to add it to then leave out the password otherwise it will throw an error. You can use the keytool utility that comes with java to change the keystore password if you wish but since it does not contain any private keys there is little point in changing the password but if you do then you will have to pass the new password in to the OpenAS2 app using the javax.net.ssl.trustStorePassword property.
   
   If the class only receives a single certificate as response from the remote host it generslly indicates that the root certificate is not trusted and will need installing into a keystore for use by the OpenAS2 application. The output from the class should make it clear it was unable to successfully complete an SSL handshake and it will import the certificate (root or chain  as necessary) into the keystore.

2. 2.Add the local cert store to the OpenAS2 startup by adding this to the startup command in the relevant batch file you are using to start OpenAS2:
   -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStore=<pathToKeystore>/<localKeystoreFile> 

Sometimes it may be necessary to see what is actually in the mime body parts received from a partner. OpenAS2 provides a mechanism to enable logging of either received message mime body parts or receieved MDN mime body parts. These are enabled using OpenAS2 startup variables in the startup script in combination with TRACE level logging. Both the DOS and Unix scripts provide these variables but are commented out near the top of the batch file and you can simply uncomment and start the application.

IMPORTANT: this could produce large log files so use sparingly and disable as soon as possible.

The startup variables are:
logRxdMsgMimeBodyParts=true
logRxdMdnMimeBodyParts=true

The below table provides configuration settings for other AS2 systems that are known to work based on user feedback.

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO PROVIDE SETTINGS FOR ANY SYSTEMS THAT REQUIRE A CHANGE FROM THE DEFAULT PROVIDED WITH THE OPENAS2 INSTALL PACKAGE TO COMMUNICATE WITH OTHER AS2 SYSTEMS.  

Where the field is left blank, the setting is unknown and the default that comes with OpenAS2 will probably work.

By default the OpenAS2 server application will start up a command processor as a socket listener allowing remote connection to the OpenAS2 server to execute commands. The OpenAS2 remote application is part of the application package but is not necessary to use it if you have no remote access requirement and should be disabled in the config.xml file if not using it by removing or commenting out the <commandProcessor> element with classname value org.openas2.cmd.processor.SocketCommandProcessor  

You can set the port that the command processor listens on using the portId parameter.  

        <commandProcessor classname="org.openas2.cmd.processor.SocketCommandProcessor"  portId="14321"  userid="userID" password="pWd"/>

The remote control application will need to connect to the specified port with the specified user ID and password.

The connection uses an anonymous secure socket cipher and may require changing this if your Java implementation does not support the default cipher which is TLS_DH_anon_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA for the latest release. This cipher is not available in older Java versions and it may be necessary to switch to SSL_DH_anon_WITH_RC4_128_MD5

To switch cipher you will need to start the OpenAS2 server and the remote command client passing the cipher name as a system property using the -D switch that can be added to the batch script that starts the application. The property must be named  “CmdProcessorSocketCipher”.

e.g java -DCmdProcessorSocketCipher=SSL_DH_anon_WITH_RC4_128_MD5 …

Variables can be used in configuration files for real time replacement of strings. Some variables are specific to certain processor modules. The variables used in the configuration files are as follows:

• $date.xxx$ ::: for date parameters

  where xxx is any valid character formatting string defined in java.text.SimpleDateFormat
  for example: $date.YYYY$ gets the four digit year

  $msg.xxx.yyy$, accesses various information about the incoming message, used by MessageFileModule. The available options for this format of dynamic variable are:

1. 1. 1.$msg.sender.as2_id$ - retrieves the AS2 ID of the sender of the message 

   2. 2.$msg.receiver.as2_id$ - retrieves the AS2 ID of the receiver of the message 

   3. 3.$msg.attributes.yyy$ - used to access any attribute on the message where the attribute identifier is used in place of “yyy”
      for example  

   4. 4.$msg.headers.yyy$ - used to access any header on the message where the header identifier is used in place of “yyy” 

   5. 5.$msg.content-disposition.yyy$ - used to access any content-disposition attribute in the message content disposition where the attribute identifier is used in place of “yyy”
      Some attriutes commonly found in an AS2 message content disposition include 

• • • ▪filename – the original name of the file that was sent 

    • ▪ 

• $mdn.zzz$ for message mdn parameters, used by EmailLogger and MDNFileModule

  where zzz can be any of the following values to get

  • •.msg – requires “zzz” to be in the form “xxx.yyy” and can access data points as defined for $msg.xxx.yyy$ format dynamic variables above 

  • •.sender – gets the as2_id of the sender 

  • •.receiver  – gets the as2_id of the receiver 

  • •.text - gets the text portion of the MDN 

  • •.attributes  – requires “zzz” to be in the form “xxx.yyy” and can access data points as defined for $msg.xxx.yyy$ format dynamic variables above 

  • •.headers – requires “zzz” to be in the form “xxx.yyy” and can access data points as defined for $msg.xxx.yyy$ format dynamic variables above 

  
  for example: $mdn.text$ gets the text portion of the MDN

  $rand.zzz$ can be used on any string parsed for parameters to produce a random UUID or a 0 padded random number of a defined number of digits

  where zzz can be any string of any number of characters

  • •.if the string is “UUID” or “uuid” (e.g $rand.UUID) then it produces a random UUID 

  • •.for any other string of characters other than UUID, the number of characters in the string determines the number of digits in the random number that is generated and will be zero padded 

  • •.e.g $rand.1234 - creates a random number between 0000 and 9999 

  • •.e.g $rand.ax1fg4c5 - creates a random number between 00000000 and 99999999 

   

  $exception.xxx$, used by EmailLogger

  where xxx can be any of the follow ing values to get

  • •.name  

  • •.message  

  • •.trace  

  • •.terminated  

  
  for example: $exception.trace$ gets the trace log of the exception

• • • •.Node: module  

      • 
        Attributes

        classname

        describes the Java class to rehandle messages
        for example: org.openas2.processor.resender.DirectoryResenderModule

        resenddir

        defines the directory to find message to resend
        for example: %home%/resend

        errordir

        defines the director to store resend messages that are in error.
        for example: %home%/resend/error

        resenddelay

        defines the wait time between resends. Defined in seconds. Default is 60.
        for example: 600

This file describes your company and your trading partners. This file requires modification to work with your application

List of commands available to the OpenAS2 server Application.

• •.Node: commands the root node  

  • •.Node: multicommand  

    attribute  

    name  

    value "cert|part", certificate commands or partnership commands  

    description  

    value is some useful text  

    • •.Node: command  

      attribute  

      classname  

      value is a OpenAS2 classname that will process a command