Signed Unsigned Applets / Java Web Start, Socket Connections?

I have been developing a test framework for a particular client/server product (COTS) that exposes XML requests & responses via a raw ip socket.

I have been able to develop my test framework in a PHP application with good results, but my desire is to make the test framework easily portable. Sure a VMWare image is portable 'enough' but a headache for some. (Get & Register VMWare Player, etc,.)

So my idea was to write a Java Applet / Java Web Start to run the test framework in the users local network environment. A website would serve the applet/jnlp and would execute on a desktop, point to a server IP/port and run the test suite. Gather the results and display to the user.

I haven't developed an applet before or a Java Web Start project, but I figure its pretty开发者_开发百科 straightforward. One thing did become a concern was the issue of Socket Connections for Signed & Unsigned applets. Other answered questions say you cannot make socket connections unless its to the originating server(?). In that case how does one sign their application applet/java web start? Who are the certificate providers etc,.?

-Israel

From here (self-signing)

1. keytool -genkey -keystore myKeyStore -alias me

2. keytool -selfcert -keystore myKeyStore -alias me

3. jarsigner -keystore myKeyStore jarfile.jar me