Do I need to escape special characters in application.properties? - spring

Question

I've special characters such as " (doublequotes), #, ~, !, %, &, }, ] in the datasource password field. When I run my springboot app and when it attempts to connect to the database I run into -
com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerException: The driver could not establish a secure connection to SQL Server by using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption. Error: "problem accessing trust store"
Caused by: java.security.KeyStoreException: problem accessing trust store
Caused by: java.io.IOException: Keystore was tampered with, or password was incorrect
Caused by: java.security.UnrecoverableKeyException: Password verification failed
My questions are :
(1) Is there a way to view what password is Spring using to attempt the connection?
(2) Do I need to escape any of the special characters in the password in the application.properties?
I was able to connect to the database using a standalone java program but I had to escape the double quotes in the password. I'm using Springboot-2.0.4, Flyway-5.2.4, jdk 1.8 and MS-SQL server on the backend.
Thanks.

Answer 1

application.properties: No escaping is required for your specified characters.
If you use e.g. a backslash, you'd need to escape it with another backslash, like so: C:\\Development\\mydir
application.yml: Surround value with " and escape embedded " like this \"
Note: application.yml is outside question from OP. Use either application.properties or application.yml, not both.
Tested and verified with this entry in application.properties
myapp.entry-with-special-characters=#~!%&=""
And tested again with this entry in application.yml
myapp:
entry-with-special-characters: "#~!%&=\"\""
Output value to console like this (put code inside e.g. class annotated with #SpringBootApplication, will run when application starts)
#Bean
public CommandLineRunner propertiesTest(#Value("${myapp.entry-with-special-characters}") String myVal) {
return args -> System.out.printf("Test-output for StackOverflow: %s\n", myVal);
}
With Flyway, try this instead
/**
* Override default flyway initializer to do nothing
*/
#Bean
FlywayMigrationInitializer flywayInitializer(Flyway flyway, #Value("${myapp.entry-with-special-characters}") String myVal) {
System.out.printf("Test-output for StackOverflow: %s\n", myVal);
return new FlywayMigrationInitializer(flyway, (f) ->{} );
}
Spring Boot: Hibernate and Flyway boot order
Answer to the question
Is there a way to view what password is Spring using to attempt the
connection?
can be to replace the key myapp.entry-with-special-characters in the above bean with relevant key from application.properties. Please keep in mind that passwords are secrets.
Environment used during testing:
Spring Boot 2.4.1
JDK 14.0.2
Windows 10 Home