Tomcat-to-tomcat connection gives SSLHandshakeException, while JavaApp-to-Tomcat works just fine

I have a Tomcat 7 server that runs some servlet that I need to access via a post from another Tomcat 7 server.

The connection is an SSL connection for security reasons and I use this code to connect:

/* Load the keyStore that includes self-signed cert as a "trusted" entry. */
KeyStore keyStore = KeyStore.getInstance("JKS");
keyStore.load(new FileInputStream("myjks.jks"), "123456".toCharArray());
TrustManagerFactory tmf = 
    TrustManagerFactory.getInstance(TrustManagerFactory.getDefaultAlgorithm());
tmf.init(keyStore);
SSLContext ctx = SSLContext.getInstance("TLSv1");
ctx.init(null, tmf.getTrustManagers(), null);
SSLSocketFactory sslFactory = ctx.getSocketFactory();

HttpClientBuilder builder = HttpClientBuilder.create();
SSLConnectionSocketFactory sslConnectionFactory = 
    new SSLConnectionSocketFactory(ctx, 
        SSLConnectionSocketFactory.ALLOW_ALL_HOSTNAME_VERIFIER);
builder.setSSLSocketFactory(sslConnectionFactory);

Registry<ConnectionSocketFactory> registry = 
    RegistryBuilder.<ConnectionSocketFactory>create()
        .register("https", sslConnectionFactory)
        .build();

HttpClientConnectionManager ccm = new BasicHttpClientConnectionManager(registry);

builder.setConnectionManager(ccm);
CloseableHttpClient client = builder.build();

HttpPost post = new HttpPost("https://myurl.com:9999/post");

/* post has parameters - omitted */

HttpResponse response = client.execute(post);
HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity();
String responseString = EntityUtils.toString(entity, "UTF-8");
int httpCode = response.getStatusLine().getStatusCode();
System.out.println(responseString);
System.out.println(httpCode);

      

        
        
        
      

    

There is a problem: every time I try to connect, I get

Fatal warning received: handshake_failure

Now, the weird thing is that the same code , run through a simple Java application, just works and outputs

<response data>
200

      

        
        
        
      

    

The code on the server runs on Apache Tomcat 7.0.42 with Java 6 and the Java application runs on Java 6.

This is how the Tomcat-SSL server connector is configured:

<Connector port="${tomcat.ssl.port}" protocol="HTTP/1.1"
                    enableLookups="false"
                    SSLEnabled="true" scheme="https" sslProtocol="TLS" secure="true" clientAuth="false"
                    keystoreFile="${catalina.base}/conf/certstore/server.jks"
                    keystorePass="123456"
                    truststoreFile="${catalina.base}/conf/certstore/ca.jks"
                    truststorePass="123456"
                    URIEncoding="UTF-8"
                    ciphers="SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_MD5,
                            SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA,
                            TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA,
                            TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA,
                            TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA,
                            SSL_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA,
                            SSL_DHE_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA,
                            SSL_DHE_DSS_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA,
                            TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA,
                            TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA,
                            TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA"
                    />

      

        
        
        
      

    

These are the supported ciphers:

SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_MD5
SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA
TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA
TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA
SSL_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA
SSL_DHE_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA
SSL_DHE_DSS_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA
SSL_RSA_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA
SSL_DHE_RSA_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA
SSL_DHE_DSS_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA
SSL_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_RC4_40_MD5
SSL_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA
SSL_DHE_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA
SSL_DHE_DSS_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA
TLS_EMPTY_RENEGOTIATION_INFO_SCSV

      

        
        
        
      

    

Why is tomcat-to-tomcat connection giving these problems? What should I do to make this code work?