Java and SSL: What OpenSSL Considers an Acceptable Error Message

This post is part of a series about the worlds of Java and SSL.  I hope to do 1 post a day on this topic. The resulting posts will become the basis for another section of a talk that I am scheduled to give on August 10 at the Boulder/Denver Cybersecurity Meetup.

An Example Error Message from OpenSSL

16884:error:02001002:system library:fopen:No such file or directory:/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/OpenSSL098/OpenSSL098-64.50.6/src/crypto/bio/bss_file.c:126:fopen('c:opensslbinopenssl.cnf','rb')

16884:error:2006D080:BIO routines:BIO_new_file:no such file:/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/OpenSSL098/OpenSSL098-64.50.6/src/crypto/bio/bss_file.c:129:

16884:error:0E078072:configuration file routines:DEF_LOAD:no such file:/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/OpenSSL098/OpenSSL098-64.50.6/src/crypto/conf/conf_def.c:197:

When I first saw the output from openSSL my jaw dropped.  This error gives me only a vague idea of what went wrong (a file appears to be missing), and absolutely no idea of what to do about it.