Tripp Lite KVM Java Web Start (JNLP) Setup & SSL Fix#

This guide documents the fix for opening the Tripp Lite KVM virtual console (viewer.jnlp) on macOS when modern Java blocks connections due to legacy TLS/SSL cipher handshake failures.

1. Problem Overview#

When launching viewer.jnlp via Java Web Start (javaws), the applet fails with the following errors:

com.sun.deploy.net.FailedDownloadException: Unable to load resource: https://10.1.5.2:443/iClientJ12111.jar@pid=...
javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException: Received fatal alert: handshake_failure

Cause#

Tripp Lite IP KVM switches (and rebranded ATEN/Avocent devices) rely on legacy SSL/TLS protocols (TLS 1.0 / TLS 1.1) and deprecated ciphers (e.g., 3DES, 1024-bit Diffie-Hellman keys). Modern Java runtimes (Java 8u291+ and newer) disable these protocols by default in java.security.