Policy files used by the default policy implementation must be coded in UTF-8 code set. Consequently, policytool processes and generates only UTF-8 coded policy files. Because the first 127 characters of the UTF-8 code set are identical to those of the ASCII code set, users can also generate a file in this code set by first creating the file with the editor in the normal native code set (OSD_EBCDIC_DF04_1) and then using the native2ascii tool to convert the file to the ASCII code set.
CAUTION!
When the new file is generated, native2ascii does not transfer the access rights of the old file. If necessary, these must be changed using chmod.
As of version JENV V1.4B the system property sun.security.policy.utf8 is provided which you can use for policy files with native codeset. sun.security.policy.utf8 can have the values true or false. You therefore can use policy files in native encoding with the following call:
java -Dsun.security.policy.utf8=false...
We however recommend to use UTF-8 encoded policy files.