defensive-coding-guide/en-US/features/Features-TLS.adoc

:experimental:
include::en-US/entities.adoc[]

[[chap-Defensive_Coding-TLS]]
= Transport Layer Security (TLS)

Transport Layer Security (TLS, formerly Secure Sockets
Layer/SSL) is the recommended way to to protect integrity and
confidentiality while data is transferred over an untrusted
network connection, and to identify the endpoint. At this
chapter we describe the available libraries in Fedora as well
as known pitfalls, and safe ways to write applications with them.

When using any library, in addition to this guide, it is recommended to consult the
library' documentation.

* link:++https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Projects/NSS++[NSS documentation]

* link:++http://www.gnutls.org/manual/++[GnuTLS documentation]

* link:++https://www.openssl.org/docs/++[OpenSSL documentation]

* link:++https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/guides/security/jsse/JSSERefGuide.html++[OpenJDK documentation]

[[sect-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Pitfalls]]
== Common Pitfalls

TLS implementations are difficult to use, and most of them lack
a clean API design. The following sections contain
implementation-specific advice, and some generic pitfalls are
mentioned below.

* Most TLS implementations have questionable default TLS
cipher suites. Most of them enable anonymous Diffie-Hellman
key exchange (but we generally want servers to authenticate
themselves). Many do not disable ciphers which are subject
to brute-force attacks because of restricted key lengths.
Some even disable all variants of AES in the default
configuration.
+
When overriding the cipher suite defaults, it is recommended
to disable all cipher suites which are not present on a
whitelist, instead of simply enabling a list of cipher
suites. This way, if an algorithm is disabled by default in
the TLS implementation in a future security update, the
application will not re-enable it.

* The name which is used in certificate validation must match
the name provided by the user or configuration file. No host
name canonicalization or IP address lookup must be performed.

* The TLS handshake has very poor performance if the TCP Nagle
algorithm is active. You should switch on the
`TCP_NODELAY` socket option (at least for the
duration of the handshake), or use the Linux-specific
`TCP_CORK` option.
+
[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Nagle]]
.Deactivating the TCP Nagle algorithm
====

[source,c]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-Nagle.adoc[]		      
----

====

* Implementing proper session resumption decreases handshake
overhead considerably. This is important if the upper-layer
protocol uses short-lived connections (like most application
of HTTPS).

* Both client and server should work towards an orderly
connection shutdown, that is send
`close_notify` alerts and respond to them.
This is especially important if the upper-layer protocol
does not provide means to detect connection truncation (like
some uses of HTTP).

* When implementing a server using event-driven programming,
it is important to handle the TLS handshake properly because
it includes multiple network round-trips which can block
when an ordinary TCP `accept` would not.
Otherwise, a client which fails to complete the TLS
handshake for some reason will prevent the server from
handling input from other clients.

* Unlike regular file descriptors, TLS connections cannot be
passed between processes. Some TLS implementations add
additional restrictions, and TLS connections generally
cannot be used across `fork` function
calls (see <<sect-Defensive_Coding-Tasks-Processes-Fork-Parallel>>).

[[sect-Defensive_Coding-TLS-OpenSSL]]
=== OpenSSL Pitfalls

Some OpenSSL function use *tri-state return
values*. Correct error checking is extremely
important. Several functions return `int`
values with the following meaning:

* The value `1` indicates success (for
example, a successful signature verification).

* The value `0` indicates semantic
failure (for example, a signature verification which was
unsuccessful because the signing certificate was
self-signed).

* The value `-1` indicates a low-level
error in the system, such as failure to allocate memory
using `malloc`.

Treating such tri-state return values as booleans can lead
to security vulnerabilities. Note that some OpenSSL
functions return boolean results or yet another set of
status indicators. Each function needs to be checked
individually.

Recovering precise error information is difficult.
<<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-OpenSSL-Errors>>
shows how to obtain a more precise error code after a function
call on an `SSL` object has failed. However,
there are still cases where no detailed error information is
available (e.g., if `SSL_shutdown` fails
due to a connection teardown by the other end).

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-OpenSSL-Errors]]
.Obtaining OpenSSL error codes
====

[source,c]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-OpenSSL-Errors.adoc[]
----

====

The `OPENSSL_config` function is
documented to never fail. In reality, it can terminate the
entire process if there is a failure accessing the
configuration file. An error message is written to standard
error, but which might not be visible if the function is
called from a daemon process.

OpenSSL contains two separate ASN.1 DER decoders. One set
of decoders operate on BIO handles (the input/output stream
abstraction provided by OpenSSL); their decoder function
names start with `d2i_` and end in
`_fp` or `_bio` (e.g.,
`d2i_X509_fp` or
`d2i_X509_bio`). These decoders must not
be used for parsing data from untrusted sources; instead,
the variants without the `_fp` and
`_bio` (e.g.,
`d2i_X509`) shall be used. The BIO
variants have received considerably less testing and are not
very robust.

For the same reason, the OpenSSL command line tools (such as
[command]`openssl x509`) are generally generally less
robust than the actual library code. They use the BIO
functions internally, and not the more robust variants.

The command line tools do not always indicate failure in the
exit status of the [application]*openssl* process.
For instance, a verification failure in [command]`openssl
verify` result in an exit status of zero.

OpenSSL command-line commands, such as [command]`openssl
genrsa`, do not ensure that physical entropy is used
for key generation—they obtain entropy from
`/dev/urandom` and other sources, but not
from `/dev/random`. This can result in
weak keys if the system lacks a proper entropy source (e.g., a
virtual machine with solid state storage). Depending on local
policies, keys generated by these OpenSSL tools should not be
used in high-value, critical functions.

The OpenSSL server and client applications ([command]`openssl
s_client` and [command]`openssl s_server`)
are debugging tools and should *never* be
used as generic clients. For instance, the
[application]*s_client* tool reacts in a
surprising way to lines starting with `R` and
`Q`.

OpenSSL allows application code to access private key
material over documented interfaces. This can significantly
increase the part of the code base which has to undergo
security certification.

[[sect-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Pitfalls-GnuTLS]]
=== GnuTLS Pitfalls

Older versions of GnuTLS had several peculiarities described
in previous versions of this guide; as of GnuTLS 3.3.10, these 
issues are no longer applicable.

[[sect-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Pitfalls-OpenJDK]]
=== OpenJDK Pitfalls

The Java cryptographic framework is highly modular. As a
result, when you request an object implementing some
cryptographic functionality, you cannot be completely sure
that you end up with the well-tested, reviewed implementation
in OpenJDK.

OpenJDK (in the source code as published by Oracle) and other
implementations of the Java platform require that the system
administrator has installed so-called *unlimited
strength jurisdiction policy files*. Without this
step, it is not possible to use the secure algorithms which
offer sufficient cryptographic strength. Most downstream
redistributors of OpenJDK remove this requirement.

Some versions of OpenJDK use `/dev/random`
as the randomness source for nonces and other random data
which is needed for TLS operation, but does not actually
require physical randomness. As a result, TLS applications
can block, waiting for more bits to become available in
`/dev/random`.

[[sect-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Pitfalls-NSS]]
=== NSS Pitfalls

NSS was not designed to be used by other libraries which can
be linked into applications without modifying them. There is
a lot of global state. There does not seem to be a way to
perform required NSS initialization without race conditions.

If the NSPR descriptor is in an unexpected state, the
`SSL_ForceHandshake` function can succeed,
but no TLS handshake takes place, the peer is not
authenticated, and subsequent data is exchanged in the clear.

NSS disables itself if it detects that the process underwent a
`fork` after the library has been
initialized. This behavior is required by the PKCS#11 API
specification.

[[sect-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client]]
== TLS Clients

Secure use of TLS in a client generally involves all of the
following steps. (Individual instructions for specific TLS
implementations follow in the next sections.)

* The client must configure the TLS library to use a set of
trusted root certificates. These certificates are provided
by the system in various formats and files. These are documented in `update-ca-trust`
man page in Fedora. Portable applications should not hard-code
any paths; they should rely on APIs which set the default
for the system trust store.

* The client selects sufficiently strong cryptographic
primitives and disables insecure ones (such as no-op
encryption). Compression support and SSL version 3 or lower must be
disabled (including the SSLv2-compatible handshake).

* The client initiates the TLS connection. The Server Name
Indication extension should be used if supported by the
TLS implementation. Before switching to the encrypted
connection state, the contents of all input and output
buffers must be discarded.

* The client needs to validate the peer certificate provided
by the server, that is, the client must check that there
is a cryptographically protected chain from a trusted root
certificate to the peer certificate. (Depending on the
TLS implementation, a TLS handshake can succeed even if
the certificate cannot be validated.)

* The client must check that the configured or user-provided
server name matches the peer certificate provided by the
server.

It is safe to provide users detailed diagnostics on
certificate validation failures. Other causes of handshake
failures and, generally speaking, any details on other errors
reported by the TLS implementation (particularly exception
tracebacks), must not be divulged in ways that make them
accessible to potential attackers. Otherwise, it is possible
to create decryption oracles.

[IMPORTANT]
====

Depending on the application, revocation checking (against
certificate revocations lists or via OCSP) and session
resumption are important aspects of production-quality
client. These aspects are not yet covered.

====

=== Implementation TLS Clients With OpenSSL

In the following code, the error handling is only exploratory.
Proper error handling is required for production use,
especially in libraries.

The OpenSSL library needs explicit initialization (see <<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-OpenSSL-Init>>).

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-OpenSSL-Init]]
.OpenSSL library initialization
====

[source,c]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-Client-OpenSSL-Init.adoc[]
		    
----

====

After that, a context object has to be created, which acts as
a factory for connection objects (<<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-OpenSSL-CTX>>). We
use an explicit cipher list so that we do not pick up any
strange ciphers when OpenSSL is upgraded. The actual version
requested in the client hello depends on additional
restrictions in the OpenSSL library. If possible, you should
follow the example code and use the default list of trusted
root certificate authorities provided by the system because
you would have to maintain your own set otherwise, which can
be cumbersome.

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-OpenSSL-CTX]]
.OpenSSL client context creation
====

[source,c]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-Client-OpenSSL-CTX.adoc[]
----

====

A single context object can be used to create multiple
connection objects. It is safe to use the same
`SSL_CTX` object for creating connections
concurrently from multiple threads, provided that the
`SSL_CTX` object is not modified (e.g.,
callbacks must not be changed).

After creating the TCP socket and disabling the Nagle
algorithm (per <<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Nagle>>), the actual
connection object needs to be created, as show in <<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-OpenSSL-CTX>>. If
the handshake started by `SSL_connect`
fails, the `ssl_print_error_and_exit`
function from <<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-OpenSSL-Errors>> is called.

The `certificate_validity_override`
function provides an opportunity to override the validity of
the certificate in case the OpenSSL check fails. If such
functionality is not required, the call can be removed,
otherwise, the application developer has to implement it.

The host name passed to the functions
`SSL_set_tlsext_host_name` and
`X509_check_host` must be the name that was
passed to `getaddrinfo` or a similar name
resolution function. No host name canonicalization must be
performed. The `X509_check_host` function
used in the final step for host name matching is currently
only implemented in OpenSSL 1.1, which is not released yet.
In case host name matching fails, the function
`certificate_host_name_override` is called.
This function should check user-specific certificate store, to
allow a connection even if the host name does not match the
certificate. This function has to be provided by the
application developer. Note that the override must be keyed
by both the certificate *and* the host
name.

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-OpenSSL-Connect]]
.Creating a client connection using OpenSSL
====

[source,c]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-Client-OpenSSL-Connect.adoc[]
----

====

The connection object can be used for sending and receiving
data, as in <<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-OpenSSL-Connection-Use>>.
It is also possible to create a `BIO` object
and use the `SSL` object as the underlying
transport, using `BIO_set_ssl`.

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-OpenSSL-Connection-Use]]
.Using an OpenSSL connection to send and receive data
====

[source,c]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-Client-OpenSSL-Connection-Use.adoc[]
----

====

When it is time to close the connection, the
`SSL_shutdown` function needs to be called
twice for an orderly, synchronous connection termination
(<<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-OpenSSL-Connection-Close>>).
This exchanges `close_notify` alerts with the
server. The additional logic is required to deal with an
unexpected `close_notify` from the server.
Note that is necessary to explicitly close the underlying
socket after the connection object has been freed.

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-OpenSSL-Connection-Close]]
.Closing an OpenSSL connection in an orderly fashion
====

[source,c]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-OpenSSL-Connection-Close.adoc[]
----

====

<<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-OpenSSL-Context-Close>> shows how
to deallocate the context object when it is no longer needed
because no further TLS connections will be established.

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-OpenSSL-Context-Close]]
.Closing an OpenSSL connection in an orderly fashion
====

[source,c]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-OpenSSL-Context-Close.adoc[]
----

====

[[sect-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-GnuTLS]]
=== Implementation TLS Clients With GnuTLS

This section describes how to implement a TLS client with full
certificate validation (but without certificate revocation
checking). Note that the error handling in is only
exploratory and needs to be replaced before production use.

Before setting up TLS connections, a credentials objects has
to be allocated and initialized with the set of trusted root
CAs (<<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-GNUTLS-Credentials>>).

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-GNUTLS-Credentials]]
.Initializing a GnuTLS credentials structure
====

[source,c]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-Client-GNUTLS-Credentials.adoc[]
----

====

After the last TLS connection has been closed, this credentials
object should be freed:

[source,c]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-GNUTLS-Credentials-Close.adoc[]
----

During its lifetime, the credentials object can be used to
initialize TLS session objects from multiple threads, provided
that it is not changed.

Once the TCP connection has been established, the Nagle
algorithm should be disabled (see <<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Nagle>>). After that, the
socket can be associated with a new GnuTLS session object.
The previously allocated credentials object provides the set
of root CAs. Then the TLS handshake must be initiated. 
This is shown in <<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-GNUTLS-Connect>>.

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-GNUTLS-Connect]]
.Establishing a TLS client connection using GnuTLS
====

[source,c]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-Client-GNUTLS-Connect.adoc[]
----

====

After the handshake has been completed, the server certificate
needs to be verified against the server's hostname (<<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-GNUTLS-Verify>>). In
the example, the user-defined
`certificate_validity_override` function is
called if the verification fails, so that a separate,
user-specific trust store can be checked. This function call
can be omitted if the functionality is not needed.

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-GNUTLS-Verify]]
.Verifying a server certificate using GnuTLS
====

[source,c]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-Client-GNUTLS-Verify.adoc[]
----

====

An established TLS session can be used for sending and
receiving data, as in <<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-GNUTLS-Use>>.

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-GNUTLS-Use]]
.Using a GnuTLS session
====

[source,c]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-GNUTLS-Use.adoc[]
----

====

In order to shut down a connection in an orderly manner, you
should call the `gnutls_bye` function.
Finally, the session object can be deallocated using
`gnutls_deinit` (see <<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-GNUTLS-Disconnect>>).

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-GNUTLS-Disconnect]]
.Closing a GnuTLS session in an orderly fashion
====

[source,c]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-GNUTLS-Disconnect.adoc[]
----

====

[[sect-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-OpenJDK]]
=== Implementing TLS Clients With OpenJDK

The examples below use the following cryptographic-related
classes:

[source,java]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-Client-OpenJDK-Import.adoc[]
		    
----

If compatibility with OpenJDK 6 is required, it is necessary
to use the internal class
`sun.security.util.HostnameChecker`. (The
public OpenJDK API does not provide any support for dissecting
the subject distinguished name of an X.509 certificate, so a
custom-written DER parser is needed—or we have to use an
internal class, which we do below.) In OpenJDK 7, the
`setEndpointIdentificationAlgorithm` method
was added to the
`javax.net.ssl.SSLParameters` class,
providing an official way to implement host name checking.

TLS connections are established using an
`SSLContext` instance. With a properly
configured OpenJDK installation, the
`SunJSSE` provider uses the system-wide set
of trusted root certificate authorities, so no further
configuration is necessary. For backwards compatibility with
OpenJDK{nbsp}6, the `TLSv1` provider has to
be supported as a fall-back option. This is shown in <<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-OpenJDK-Context>>.

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-OpenJDK-Context]]
.Setting up an `SSLContext` for OpenJDK TLS	clients
====

[source,java]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-Client-OpenJDK-Context.adoc[]
----

====

In addition to the context, a TLS parameter object will be
needed which adjusts the cipher suites and protocols (<<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-OpenJDK-Parameters>>). Like
the context, these parameters can be reused for multiple TLS
connections.

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-OpenJDK-Parameters]]
.Setting up `SSLParameters` for TLS use	with OpenJDK
====

[source,java]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-OpenJDK-Parameters.adoc[]
----

====

As initialized above, the parameter object does not yet
require host name checking. This has to be enabled
separately, and this is only supported by OpenJDK 7 and later:

[source,java]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-Client-OpenJDK-Hostname.adoc[]
----

All application protocols can use the
`"HTTPS"` algorithm. (The algorithms have
minor differences with regard to wildcard handling, which
should not matter in practice.)

<<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-OpenJDK-Connect>>
shows how to establish the connection. Before the handshake
is initialized, the protocol and cipher configuration has to
be performed, by applying the parameter object
`params`. (After this point, changes to
`params` will not affect this TLS socket.)
As mentioned initially, host name checking requires using an
internal API on OpenJDK 6.

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-OpenJDK-Connect]]
.Establishing a TLS connection with OpenJDK
====

[source,java]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-Client-OpenJDK-Connect.adoc[]
----

====

Starting with OpenJDK 7, the last lines can be omitted,
provided that host name verification has been enabled by
calling the
`setEndpointIdentificationAlgorithm` method
on the `params` object (before it was applied
to the socket).

The TLS socket can be used as a regular socket, as shown in
<<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-OpenJDK-Use>>.

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-OpenJDK-Use]]
.Using a TLS client socket in OpenJDK
====

[source,java]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-Client-OpenJDK-Use.adoc[]
----

====

==== Overriding server certificate validation with OpenJDK 6

Overriding certificate validation requires a custom trust
manager. With OpenJDK 6, the trust manager lacks
information about the TLS session, and to which server the
connection is made. Certificate overrides have to be tied
to specific servers (host names). Consequently, different
`TrustManager` and
`SSLContext` objects have to be used for
different servers.

In the trust manager shown in <<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-MyTrustManager>>,
the server certificate is identified by its SHA-256 hash.

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-MyTrustManager]]
.A customer trust manager for OpenJDK TLS clients
====

[source,java]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-Client-OpenJDK-MyTrustManager.adoc[]
----

====

This trust manager has to be passed to the
`init` method of the
`SSLContext` object, as show in <<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-Context_For_Cert>>.

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-Context_For_Cert]]
.Using a custom TLS trust manager with OpenJDK
====

[source,java]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-Client-OpenJDK-Context_For_Cert.adoc[]
----

====

When certificate overrides are in place, host name
verification should not be performed because there is no
security requirement that the host name in the certificate
matches the host name used to establish the connection (and
it often will not). However, without host name
verification, it is not possible to perform transparent
fallback to certification validation using the system
certificate store.

The approach described above works with OpenJDK 6 and later
versions. Starting with OpenJDK 7, it is possible to use a
custom subclass of the
`javax.net.ssl.X509ExtendedTrustManager`
class. The OpenJDK TLS implementation will call the new
methods, passing along TLS session information. This can be
used to implement certificate overrides as a fallback (if
certificate or host name verification fails), and a trust
manager object can be used for multiple servers because the
server address is available to the trust manager.

[[sect-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-NSS]]
=== Implementing TLS Clients With NSS

The following code shows how to implement a simple TLS client
using NSS. These instructions apply to NSS version 3.14 and
later. Versions before 3.14 need different initialization
code.

Keep in mind that the error handling needs to be improved
before the code can be used in production.

Using NSS needs several header files, as shown in 
<<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-NSS-Includes>>.

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-NSS-Includes]]
.Include files for NSS
====

[source,c]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-NSS-Includes.adoc[]
----

====

Initializing the NSS library is shown in <<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-NSS-Init>>. This
initialization procedure overrides global state. We only call
`NSS_SetDomesticPolicy` if there are no
strong ciphers available, assuming that it has already been
called otherwise. This avoids overriding the process-wide
cipher suite policy unnecessarily.

The simplest way to configured the trusted root certificates
involves loading the `libnssckbi.so` NSS
module with a call to the
`SECMOD_LoadUserModule` function. The root
certificates are compiled into this module. (The PEM module
for NSS, `libnsspem.so`, offers a way to
load trusted CA certificates from a file.)

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-NSS-Init]]
.Initializing the NSS library
====

[source,c]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-NSS-Init.adoc[]
		    
----

====

Some of the effects of the initialization can be reverted with
the following function calls:

[source,c]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-NSS-Close.adoc[]
----

After NSS has been initialized, the TLS connection can be
created (<<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-NSS-Connect>>). The
internal `PR_ImportTCPSocket` function is
used to turn the POSIX file descriptor
`sockfd` into an NSPR file descriptor. (This
function is de-facto part of the NSS public ABI, so it will
not go away.) Creating the TLS-capable file descriptor
requires a *model* descriptor, which is
configured with the desired set of protocols. The model
descriptor is not needed anymore after TLS support has been
activated for the existing connection descriptor.

The call to `SSL_BadCertHook` can be
omitted if no mechanism to override certificate verification
is needed. The `bad_certificate` function
must check both the host name specified for the connection and
the certificate before granting the override.

Triggering the actual handshake requires three function calls,
`SSL_ResetHandshake`,
`SSL_SetURL`, and
`SSL_ForceHandshake`. (If
`SSL_ResetHandshake` is omitted,
`SSL_ForceHandshake` will succeed, but the
data will not be encrypted.) During the handshake, the
certificate is verified and matched against the host name.

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-NSS-Connect]]
.Creating a TLS connection with NSS
====

[source,c]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-Client-NSS-Connect.adoc[]
----

====

After the connection has been established, <<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-NSS-Use>> shows how to use
the NSPR descriptor to communicate with the server.

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-NSS-Use]]
.Using NSS for sending and receiving data
====

[source,c]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-NSS-Use.adoc[]
----

====

<<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-NSS-Close>>
shows how to close the connection.

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-NSS-Close]]
.Closing NSS client connections
====

[source,c]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-Client-NSS-Close.adoc[]
		    
----

====

[[sect-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-Python]]
=== Implementing TLS Clients With Python

The Python distribution provides a TLS implementation in the
`ssl` module (actually a wrapper around
OpenSSL). The exported interface is somewhat restricted, so
that the client code shown below does not fully implement the
recommendations in <<sect-Defensive_Coding-TLS-OpenSSL>>.

[IMPORTANT]
====

Currently, most Python function which accept
`https://` URLs or otherwise implement
HTTPS support do not perform certificate validation at all.
(For example, this is true for the `httplib`
and `xmlrpclib` modules.) If you use
HTTPS, you should not use the built-in HTTP clients. The
`Curl` class in the `curl`
module, as provided by the `python-pycurl`
package implements proper certificate validation.

====

The `ssl` module currently does not perform
host name checking on the server certificate. <<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-Python-check_host_name>>
shows how to implement certificate matching, using the parsed
certificate returned by `getpeercert`.

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-Python-check_host_name]]
.Implementing TLS host name checking Python (without wildcard support)
====

[source,python]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-Client-Python-check_host_name.adoc[]
----

====

To turn a regular, connected TCP socket into a TLS-enabled
socket, use the `ssl.wrap_socket` function.
The function call in <<ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-Python-Connect>>
provides additional arguments to override questionable
defaults in OpenSSL and in the Python module.

* `ciphers="HIGH:-aNULL:-eNULL:-PSK:RC4-SHA:RC4-MD5"`
selects relatively strong cipher suites with
certificate-based authentication. (The call to
`check_host_name` function provides 
additional protection against anonymous cipher suites.)

* `ssl_version=ssl.PROTOCOL_TLSv1` disables
SSL 2.0 support. By default, the `ssl`
module sends an SSL 2.0 client hello, which is rejected by
some servers. Ideally, we would request OpenSSL to
negotiated the most recent TLS version supported by the
server and the client, but the Python module does not
allow this.

* `cert_reqs=ssl.CERT_REQUIRED` turns on
certificate validation.

* `ca_certs='/etc/ssl/certs/ca-bundle.crt'`
initializes the certificate store with a set of trusted
root CAs. Unfortunately, it is necessary to hard-code
this path into applications because the default path in
OpenSSL is not available through the Python
`ssl` module.

The `ssl` module (and OpenSSL) perform
certificate validation, but the certificate must be compared
manually against the host name, by calling the
`check_host_name` defined above.

[[ex-Defensive_Coding-TLS-Client-Python-Connect]]
.Establishing a TLS client connection with Python
====

[source,python]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-Client-Python-Connect.adoc[]
----

====

After the connection has been established, the TLS socket can
be used like a regular socket:

[source,python]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-Python-Use.adoc[]
----

Closing the TLS socket is straightforward as well:

[source,python]
----
include::en-US/snippets/Features-TLS-Python-Close.adoc[]
----