Description of problem:
After enabling TLS encryption for agent-to-server communication, the agent will fail to start with the following exception:

            2012-10-15 13:30:06,346 ERROR [RHQ Server Polling Thread] (jboss.remoting.transport.socket.MicroSocketClientInvoker)- Error setting up SocketClientInvoker[72e5355f, sslsocket://127.0.0.1:55555]
            java.lang.NullPointerException
	            at java.util.Hashtable.put(Hashtable.java:411)
	            at java.util.Hashtable.putAll(Hashtable.java:483)
	            at org.jboss.remoting.transport.socket.MicroSocketClientInvoker.setup(MicroSocketClientInvoker.java:404)
	            at org.jboss.remoting.transport.socket.MicroSocketClientInvoker.<init>(MicroSocketClientInvoker.java:253)
	            at org.jboss.remoting.transport.socket.SocketClientInvoker.<init>(SocketClientInvoker.java:72)
	            at org.jboss.remoting.transport.sslsocket.SSLSocketClientInvoker.<init>(SSLSocketClientInvoker.java:65)
	            at org.jboss.remoting.transport.sslsocket.TransportClientFactory.createClientInvoker(TransportClientFactory.java:38)
	            at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
	            at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
	            at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
	            at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:616)
	            at org.jboss.remoting.InvokerRegistry.loadClientInvoker(InvokerRegistry.java:419)
	            at org.jboss.remoting.InvokerRegistry.createClientInvoker(InvokerRegistry.java:320)
	            at org.jboss.remoting.Client.connect(Client.java:459)
	            at org.rhq.enterprise.communications.command.client.JBossRemotingRemoteCommunicator.getRemotingClient(JBossRemotingRemoteCommunicator.java:659)
	            at org.rhq.enterprise.communications.command.client.JBossRemotingRemoteCommunicator.rawSend(JBossRemotingRemoteCommunicator.java:514)
	            at org.rhq.enterprise.communications.command.client.JBossRemotingRemoteCommunicator.sendWithoutCallbacks(JBossRemotingRemoteCommunicator.java:456)
	            at org.rhq.enterprise.communications.command.client.JBossRemotingRemoteCommunicator.sendWithoutInitializeCallback(JBossRemotingRemoteCommunicator.java:475)
	            at org.rhq.enterprise.communications.command.client.JBossRemotingRemoteCommunicator.send(JBossRemotingRemoteCommunicator.java:496)
	            at org.rhq.enterprise.communications.command.client.AbstractCommandClient.invoke(AbstractCommandClient.java:143)
	            at org.rhq.enterprise.communications.command.client.ClientCommandSender.send(ClientCommandSender.java:1091)
	            at org.rhq.enterprise.communications.command.client.ServerPollingThread.run(ServerPollingThread.java:115)



This is due to rhq.communications.connector.security.truststore.password and/or -- not sure which one -- rhq.agent.client.security.truststore.password not being defined in the agent's configuration. By default, these properties are commented out in agent-configuration.xml and also have an empty value.

These properties should not be defined in the configuration map if they were not specified by the agent configuration. The error occurs specifically due to the attempt to assign null as the value for the hash map.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
JON 3.1.0

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.  Enable SSL/TLS encryption using sslsocket for agent-to-server communication.

    This can be done as per the JBoss ON documentation[1].

2.  Start the agent
  
Actual results:
ERROR [RHQ Server Polling Thread] (jboss.remoting.transport.socket.MicroSocketClientInvoker)- Error setting up SocketClientInvoker[72e5355f, sslsocket://127.0.0.1:55555]
            java.lang.NullPointerException

And agent fails to completely start and communicate with its configured server.

Expected results:
No error and agent-to-server communication should work just fine.


Additional info:
To work around the issue, one just needs to re-configure the agent with a dummy value provided for this property.



[1]: https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/docs/en-US/JBoss_Operations_Network/3.1/html/Admin_Configuring_JON_Servers_and_Agents/configuring-ssl.html