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			673 lines
		
	
	
		
			30 KiB
		
	
	
	
		
			XML
		
	
	
	
	
	
| <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8' ?>
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| <!DOCTYPE manualpage SYSTEM "../style/manualpage.dtd">
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| <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="../style/manual.en.xsl"?>
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| <!-- $LastChangedRevision$ -->
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| 
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| <!--
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|  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
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|  contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
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|  this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
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|  The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
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|  (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
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|  the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
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| 
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|      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
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| 
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|  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
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|  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
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|  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
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|  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
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|  limitations under the License.
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| -->
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| 
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| <manualpage metafile="ssl_intro.xml.meta">
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| <parentdocument href="./">SSL/TLS</parentdocument>
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| 
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|   <title>SSL/TLS Strong Encryption: An Introduction</title>
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| 
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| <summary>
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| 
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| <p>As an introduction this chapter is aimed at readers who are familiar
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| with the Web, HTTP, and Apache, but are not security experts. It is not
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| intended to be a definitive guide to the SSL protocol, nor does it discuss
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| specific techniques for managing certificates in an organization, or the
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| important legal issues of patents and import and export restrictions.
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| Rather, it is intended to provide a common background to <module
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| >mod_ssl</module> users by pulling together various concepts, definitions,
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| and examples as a starting point for further exploration.</p>
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| </summary>
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| 
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| <section id="cryptographictech">
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| <title>Cryptographic Techniques</title>
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| <p>Understanding SSL requires an understanding of cryptographic
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| algorithms, message digest functions (aka. one-way or hash functions), and
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| digital signatures. These techniques are the subject of entire books (see
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| for instance [<a href="#AC96">AC96</a>]) and provide the basis for privacy,
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| integrity, and authentication.</p>
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| 
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| <section id="cryptographicalgo">
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| <title>Cryptographic Algorithms</title>
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|     <p>Suppose Alice wants to send a message to her bank to transfer some
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|     money. Alice would like the message to be private, since it will
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|     include information such as her account number and transfer amount. One
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|     solution is to use a cryptographic algorithm, a technique that would
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|     transform her message into an encrypted form, unreadable until it is
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|     decrypted. Once in this form, the message can only be
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|     decrypted by using a secret key. Without the key the message is useless:
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|     good cryptographic algorithms make it so difficult
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|     for intruders to decode the original text that it isn't worth their
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|     effort.</p>
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| 
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|     <p>There are two categories of cryptographic algorithms: conventional
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|     and public key.</p>
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| 
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|     <dl>
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|     <dt>Conventional cryptography</dt>
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|     <dd>also known as symmetric cryptography, requires the sender and
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|     receiver to share a key: a secret piece of information that may be
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|     used to encrypt or decrypt a message. As long as this key is kept
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|     secret, nobody other than the sender or recipient can read the message.
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|     If Alice and the bank know a secret key, then they can send each other
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|     private messages. The task of sharing a key between sender and recipient
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|     before communicating, while also keeping it secret from others, can be
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|     problematic.</dd>
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| 
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|     <dt>Public key cryptography</dt>
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|     <dd>also known as asymmetric cryptography, solves the key exchange
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|     problem by defining an algorithm which uses two keys, each of which
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|     may be used to encrypt a message. If one key is used to encrypt a
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|     message then the other must be used to decrypt it. This makes it
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|     possible to receive secure messages by simply publishing one key
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|     (the public key) and keeping the other secret (the private key).</dd>
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|     </dl>
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| 
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|     <p>Anyone can encrypt a message using the public key, but only the
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|     owner of the private key will be able to read it. In this way, Alice
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|     can send private messages to the owner of a key-pair (the bank), by
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|     encrypting them using their public key. Only the bank will be able to
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|     decrypt them.</p>
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| </section>
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| 
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| <section id="messagedigests">
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| <title>Message Digests</title>
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|     <p>Although Alice may encrypt her message to make it private, there
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|     is still a concern that someone might modify her original message or
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|     substitute it with a different one, in order to transfer the money
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|     to themselves, for instance. One way of guaranteeing the integrity
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|     of Alice's message is for her to create a concise summary of her
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|     message and send this to the bank as well. Upon receipt of the message,
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|     the bank creates its own summary and compares it with the one Alice
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|     sent. If the summaries are the same then the message has been received
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|     intact.</p>
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| 
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|     <p>A summary such as this is called a <dfn>message digest</dfn>, <em>one-way
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|     function</em> or <em>hash function</em>. Message digests are used to create
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|     a short, fixed-length representation of a longer, variable-length message.
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|     Digest algorithms are designed to produce a unique digest for each
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|     message. Message digests are designed to make it impractically difficult
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|     to determine the message from the digest and (in theory) impossible to
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|     find two different messages which create the same digest -- thus
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|     eliminating the possibility of substituting one message for another while
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|     maintaining the same digest.</p>
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| 
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|     <p>Another challenge that Alice faces is finding a way to send the digest
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|     to the bank securely; if the digest is not sent securely, its integrity may
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|     be compromised and with it the possibility for the bank to determine the
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|     integrity of the original message. Only if the digest is sent securely can
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|     the integrity of the associated message be determined.</p>
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| 
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|     <p>One way to send the digest securely is to include it in a digital
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|     signature.</p>
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| </section>
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| 
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| <section id="digitalsignatures"><title>Digital Signatures</title>
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| <p>When Alice sends a message to the bank, the bank needs to ensure that the
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| message is really from her, so an intruder cannot request a transaction
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| involving her account. A <em>digital signature</em>, created by Alice and
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| included with the message, serves this purpose.</p>
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| 
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| <p>Digital signatures are created by encrypting a digest of the message and
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| other information (such as a sequence number) with the sender's private key.
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| Though anyone can <em>decrypt</em> the signature using the public key, only the
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| sender knows the private key. This means that only the sender can have signed
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| the message. Including the digest in the signature means the signature is only
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| good for that message; it also ensures the integrity of the message since no one
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| can change the digest and still sign it.</p>
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| <p>To guard against interception and reuse of the signature by an intruder at a
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| later date, the signature contains a unique sequence number. This protects
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| the bank from a fraudulent claim from Alice that she did not send the message
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| -- only she could have signed it (non-repudiation).</p>
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| </section>
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| </section>
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| <!-- /cryptographictech -->
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| 
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| <section id="certificates">
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| <title>Certificates</title>
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| <p>Although Alice could have sent a private message to the bank, signed
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| it and ensured the integrity of the message, she still needs to be sure
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| that she is really communicating with the bank. This means that she needs
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| to be sure that the public key she is using is part of the bank's key-pair,
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| and not an intruder's. Similarly, the bank needs to verify that the message
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| signature really was signed by the private key that belongs to Alice.</p>
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| 
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| <p>If each party has a certificate which validates the other's identity,
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| confirms the public key and is signed by a trusted agency, then both
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| can be assured that they are communicating with whom they think they are.
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| Such a trusted agency is called a <em>Certificate Authority</em> and
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| certificates are used for authentication.</p>
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| 
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| <section id="certificatecontents">
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| <title>Certificate Contents</title>
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|     <p>A certificate associates a public key with the real identity of
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|     an individual, server, or other entity, known as the subject. As
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|     shown in <a href="#table1">Table 1</a>, information about the subject
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|     includes identifying information (the distinguished name) and the
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|     public key. It also includes the identification and signature of the
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|     Certificate Authority that issued the certificate and the period of
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|     time during which the certificate is valid. It may have additional
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|     information (or extensions) as well as administrative information
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|     for the Certificate Authority's use, such as a serial number.</p>
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| 
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|     <section id="table1">
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|     <title>Table 1: Certificate Information</title>
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|     <table>
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|     <columnspec><column width=".35"/><column width=".35"/>
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|     </columnspec>
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|     <tr><th>Subject</th>
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|         <td>Distinguished Name, Public Key</td></tr>
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|     <tr><th>Issuer</th>
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|         <td>Distinguished Name, Signature</td></tr>
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|     <tr><th>Period of Validity</th>
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|         <td>Not Before Date, Not After Date</td></tr>
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|     <tr><th>Administrative Information</th>
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|         <td>Version, Serial Number</td></tr>
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|     <tr><th>Extended Information</th>
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|         <td>Basic Constraints, Netscape Flags, etc.</td></tr>
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|     </table>
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|     </section>
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| 
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|     <p>A distinguished name is used to provide an identity in a specific
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|     context -- for instance, an individual might have a personal
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|     certificate as well as one for their identity as an employee.
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|     Distinguished names are defined by the X.509 standard [<a
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|     href="#X509">X509</a>], which defines the fields, field names and
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|     abbreviations used to refer to the fields (see <a href="#table2">Table
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|     2</a>).</p>
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| 
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|     <section id="table2">
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|     <title>Table 2: Distinguished Name Information</title>
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|     <table border="1">
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|     <columnspec><column width=".25"/><column width=".15"/>
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|       <column width=".3"/><column width=".25"/></columnspec>
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|     <tr><th>DN Field</th>
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|         <th>Abbrev.</th>
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|         <th>Description</th>
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|         <th>Example</th></tr>
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|     <tr><td>Common Name</td>
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|         <td>CN</td>
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|         <td>Name being certified</td>
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|         <td>CN=Joe Average</td></tr>
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|     <tr><td>Organization or Company</td>
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|         <td>O</td>
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|         <td>Name is associated with this<br />organization</td>
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|         <td>O=Snake Oil, Ltd.</td></tr>
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|     <tr><td>Organizational Unit</td>
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|         <td>OU</td>
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|         <td>Name is associated with this <br />organization unit, such
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|         as a department</td>
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|         <td>OU=Research Institute</td></tr>
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|     <tr><td>City/Locality</td>
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|         <td>L</td>
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|         <td>Name is located in this City</td>
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|         <td>L=Snake City</td></tr>
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|     <tr><td>State/Province</td>
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|         <td>ST</td>
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|         <td>Name is located in this State/Province</td>
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|         <td>ST=Desert</td></tr>
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|     <tr><td>Country</td>
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|         <td>C</td>
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|         <td>Name is located in this Country (ISO code)</td>
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|         <td>C=XZ</td></tr>
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|     </table>
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|     </section>
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| 
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|     <p>A Certificate Authority may define a policy specifying which
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|     distinguished field names are optional and which are required. It
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|     may also place requirements upon the field contents, as may users of
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|     certificates. For example, a Netscape browser requires that the
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|     Common Name for a certificate representing a server matches a wildcard
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|     pattern for the domain name of that server, such
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|     as <code>*.snakeoil.com</code>.</p>
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| 
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|     <p>The binary format of a certificate is defined using the ASN.1
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|     notation [<a href="#ASN1">ASN1</a>] [<a href="#PKCS">PKCS</a>]. This
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|     notation defines how to specify the contents and encoding rules
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|     define how this information is translated into binary form. The binary
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|     encoding of the certificate is defined using Distinguished Encoding
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|     Rules (DER), which are based on the more general Basic Encoding Rules
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|     (BER). For those transmissions which cannot handle binary, the binary
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|     form may be translated into an ASCII form by using Base64 encoding
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|     [<a href="#MIME">MIME</a>]. When placed between begin and end delimiter
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|     lines (as below), this encoded version is called a PEM ("Privacy Enhanced
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|     Mail") encoded certificate.</p>
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| 
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|     <example>
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|     <title>Example of a PEM-encoded certificate (snakeoil.crt)</title>
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|     <pre>-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
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| MIIC7jCCAlegAwIBAgIBATANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQQFADCBqTELMAkGA1UEBhMCWFkx
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| FTATBgNVBAgTDFNuYWtlIERlc2VydDETMBEGA1UEBxMKU25ha2UgVG93bjEXMBUG
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| A1UEChMOU25ha2UgT2lsLCBMdGQxHjAcBgNVBAsTFUNlcnRpZmljYXRlIEF1dGhv
 | |
| cml0eTEVMBMGA1UEAxMMU25ha2UgT2lsIENBMR4wHAYJKoZIhvcNAQkBFg9jYUBz
 | |
| bmFrZW9pbC5kb20wHhcNOTgxMDIxMDg1ODM2WhcNOTkxMDIxMDg1ODM2WjCBpzEL
 | |
| MAkGA1UEBhMCWFkxFTATBgNVBAgTDFNuYWtlIERlc2VydDETMBEGA1UEBxMKU25h
 | |
| a2UgVG93bjEXMBUGA1UEChMOU25ha2UgT2lsLCBMdGQxFzAVBgNVBAsTDldlYnNl
 | |
| cnZlciBUZWFtMRkwFwYDVQQDExB3d3cuc25ha2VvaWwuZG9tMR8wHQYJKoZIhvcN
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| AQkBFhB3d3dAc25ha2VvaWwuZG9tMIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKB
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| gQDH9Ge/s2zcH+da+rPTx/DPRp3xGjHZ4GG6pCmvADIEtBtKBFAcZ64n+Dy7Np8b
 | |
| vKR+yy5DGQiijsH1D/j8HlGE+q4TZ8OFk7BNBFazHxFbYI4OKMiCxdKzdif1yfaa
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| lWoANFlAzlSdbxeGVHoT0K+gT5w3UxwZKv2DLbCTzLZyPwIDAQABoyYwJDAPBgNV
 | |
| HRMECDAGAQH/AgEAMBEGCWCGSAGG+EIBAQQEAwIAQDANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQQFAAOB
 | |
| gQAZUIHAL4D09oE6Lv2k56Gp38OBDuILvwLg1v1KL8mQR+KFjghCrtpqaztZqcDt
 | |
| 2q2QoyulCgSzHbEGmi0EsdkPfg6mp0penssIFePYNI+/8u9HT4LuKMJX15hxBam7
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| dUHzICxBVC1lnHyYGjDuAMhe396lYAn8bCld1/L4NMGBCQ==
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| -----END CERTIFICATE-----</pre>
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|     </example>
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| </section>
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| 
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| <section id="certificateauthorities">
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| <title>Certificate Authorities</title>
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|     <p>By verifying the information in a certificate request
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|     before granting the certificate, the Certificate Authority assures
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|     itself of the identity of the private key owner of a key-pair.
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|     For instance, if Alice requests a personal certificate, the
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|     Certificate Authority must first make sure that Alice really is the
 | |
|     person the certificate request claims she is.</p>
 | |
| 
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|     <section id="certificatechains">
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|     <title>Certificate Chains</title>
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|         <p>A Certificate Authority may also issue a certificate for
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|         another Certificate Authority. When examining a certificate,
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|         Alice may need to examine the certificate of the issuer, for each
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|         parent Certificate Authority, until reaching one which she has
 | |
|         confidence in. She may decide to trust only certificates with a
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|         limited chain of issuers, to reduce her risk of a "bad" certificate
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|         in the chain.</p>
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|     </section>
 | |
| 
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|     <section id="rootlevelca">
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|     <title>Creating a Root-Level CA</title>
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|         <p>As noted earlier, each certificate requires an issuer to assert
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|         the validity of the identity of the certificate subject, up to
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|         the top-level Certificate Authority (CA). This presents a problem:
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|         who can vouch for the certificate of the top-level
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|         authority, which has no issuer? In this unique case, the
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|         certificate is "self-signed", so the issuer of the certificate is
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|         the same as the subject. Browsers are preconfigured to trust well-known
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|         certificate authorities, but it is important to exercise extra care in
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|         trusting a self-signed certificate. The wide publication of a
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|         public key by the root authority reduces the risk in trusting this
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|         key -- it would be obvious if someone else publicized a key
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|         claiming to be the authority.</p>
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| 
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|         <p>A number of companies, such as <a href="http://www.thawte.com/"
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|         >Thawte</a> and <a href="http://www.verisign.com/">VeriSign</a>
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|         have established themselves as Certificate Authorities. These
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|         companies provide the following services:</p>
 | |
| 
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|         <ul>
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|         <li>Verifying certificate requests</li>
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|         <li>Processing certificate requests</li>
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|         <li>Issuing and managing certificates</li>
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|         </ul>
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| 
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|         <p>It is also possible to create your own Certificate Authority.
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|         Although risky in the Internet environment, it may be useful
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|         within an Intranet where the organization can easily verify the
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|         identities of individuals and servers.</p>
 | |
|     </section>
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| 
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|     <section id="certificatemanagement">
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|     <title>Certificate Management</title>
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|         <p>Establishing a Certificate Authority is a responsibility which
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|         requires a solid administrative, technical and management
 | |
|         framework. Certificate Authorities not only issue certificates,
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|         they also manage them -- that is, they determine for how long
 | |
|         certificates remain valid, they renew them and keep lists of
 | |
|         certificates that were issued in the past but are no longer valid
 | |
|         (Certificate Revocation Lists, or CRLs).</p>
 | |
| 
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|         <p>For example, if Alice is entitled to a certificate as an
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|         employee of a company but has now left
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|         that company, her certificate may need to be revoked.
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|         Because certificates are only issued after the subject's identity has
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|         been verified and can then be passed around to all those with whom
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|         the subject may communicate, it is impossible to tell from the
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|         certificate alone that it has been revoked.
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|         Therefore when examining certificates for validity
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|         it is necessary to contact the issuing Certificate Authority to
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|         check CRLs -- this is usually not an automated part of the process.</p>
 | |
| 
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|         <note><title>Note</title>
 | |
|         <p>If you use a Certificate Authority that browsers are not configured
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|         to trust by default, it is necessary to load the Certificate
 | |
|         Authority certificate into the browser, enabling the browser to
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|         validate server certificates signed by that Certificate Authority.
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|         Doing so may be dangerous, since once loaded, the browser will
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|         accept all certificates signed by that Certificate Authority.</p>
 | |
|         </note>
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|     </section>
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| </section>
 | |
| <!-- /certificateauthorities -->
 | |
| </section>
 | |
| <!-- /certificates -->
 | |
| 
 | |
| <section id="ssl">
 | |
| <title>Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)</title>
 | |
| <p>The Secure Sockets Layer protocol is a protocol layer which may be
 | |
| placed between a reliable connection-oriented network layer protocol
 | |
| (e.g. TCP/IP) and the application protocol layer (e.g. HTTP). SSL provides
 | |
| for secure communication between client and server by allowing mutual
 | |
| authentication, the use of digital signatures for integrity and encryption
 | |
| for privacy.</p>
 | |
| 
 | |
| <p>The protocol is designed to support a range of choices for specific
 | |
| algorithms used for cryptography, digests and signatures. This allows
 | |
| algorithm selection for specific servers to be made based on legal, export
 | |
| or other concerns and also enables the protocol to take advantage of new
 | |
| algorithms. Choices are negotiated between client and server when
 | |
| establishing a protocol session.</p>
 | |
| 
 | |
| <section id="table4">
 | |
| <title>Table 4: Versions of the SSL protocol</title>
 | |
|     <table border="1">
 | |
|     <columnspec><column width=".15"/><column width=".2"/>
 | |
|      <column width=".30"/><column width=".25"/></columnspec>
 | |
|     <tr><th>Version</th>
 | |
|         <th>Source</th>
 | |
|         <th>Description</th>
 | |
|     </tr>
 | |
|     <tr><td>SSL v2.0</td>
 | |
|         <td>Vendor Standard (from Netscape Corp.)</td>
 | |
|         <td>First SSL protocol for which implementations exist</td>
 | |
|     </tr>
 | |
|     <tr><td>SSL v3.0</td>
 | |
|         <td>Expired Internet Draft (from Netscape Corp.) [<a href="#SSL3"
 | |
|         >SSL3</a>]</td>
 | |
|         <td>Revisions to prevent specific security attacks, add non-RSA
 | |
|         ciphers and support for certificate chains</td>
 | |
|     </tr>
 | |
|     <tr><td>TLS v1.0</td>
 | |
|         <td>Proposed Internet Standard (from IETF) [<a href="#TLS1"
 | |
|         >TLS1</a>]</td>
 | |
|         <td>Revision of SSL 3.0 to update the MAC layer to HMAC, add block
 | |
|         padding for block ciphers, message order standardization and more
 | |
|         alert messages.</td>
 | |
|     </tr>
 | |
|     <tr><td>TLS v1.1</td>
 | |
|         <td>Proposed Internet Standard (from IETF) [<a href="#TLS11"
 | |
|         >TLS11</a>]</td>
 | |
|         <td>Update of TLS 1.0 to add protection against Cipher block chaining
 | |
|         (CBC) attacks.</td>
 | |
|         <td>-</td></tr>
 | |
|     <tr><td>TLS v1.2</td>
 | |
|         <td>Proposed Internet Standard (from IETF) [<a href="#TLS12"
 | |
|         >TLS12</a>]</td>
 | |
|         <td>Update of TLS 1.2 deprecating MD5 as hash, and adding incompatibility
 | |
|         to SSL so it will never negotiate the use of SSLv2.</td>
 | |
|     </tr>
 | |
|     </table>
 | |
| </section>
 | |
| 
 | |
| <p>There are a number of versions of the SSL protocol, as shown in
 | |
| <a href="#table4">Table 4</a>. As noted there, one of the benefits in
 | |
| SSL 3.0 is that it adds support of certificate chain loading. This feature
 | |
| allows a server to pass a server certificate along with issuer certificates
 | |
| to the browser. Chain loading also permits the browser to validate the
 | |
| server certificate, even if Certificate Authority certificates are not
 | |
| installed for the intermediate issuers, since they are included in the
 | |
| certificate chain. SSL 3.0 is the basis for the Transport Layer Security
 | |
| [<a href="#TLS1">TLS</a>] protocol standard, currently in development by
 | |
| the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).</p>
 | |
| 
 | |
| <section id="session">
 | |
| <title>Establishing a Session</title>
 | |
|     <p>The SSL session is established by following a handshake sequence
 | |
|     between client and server, as shown in <a href="#figure1"
 | |
|     >Figure 1</a>. This sequence may vary, depending on whether the server
 | |
|     is configured to provide a server certificate or request a client
 | |
|     certificate. Although cases exist where additional handshake steps
 | |
|     are required for management of cipher information, this article
 | |
|     summarizes one common scenario. See the SSL specification for the full
 | |
|     range of possibilities.</p>
 | |
| 
 | |
|     <note><title>Note</title>
 | |
|     <p>Once an SSL session has been established, it may be reused. This
 | |
|     avoids the performance penalty of repeating the many steps needed
 | |
|     to start a session. To do this, the server assigns each SSL session a
 | |
|     unique session identifier which is cached in the server and which the
 | |
|     client can use in future connections to reduce the handshake time
 | |
|     (until the session identifier expires from the cache of the server).</p>
 | |
|     </note>
 | |
| 
 | |
|     <p class="figure">
 | |
|     <img src="../images/ssl_intro_fig1.gif" alt="" width="423"
 | |
|         height="327" /><br />
 | |
|     <a id="figure1" name="figure1"><dfn>Figure 1</dfn></a>: Simplified SSL
 | |
|     Handshake Sequence</p>
 | |
| 
 | |
|     <p>The elements of the handshake sequence, as used by the client and
 | |
|     server, are listed below:</p>
 | |
| 
 | |
|     <ol>
 | |
|     <li>Negotiate the Cipher Suite to be used during data transfer</li>
 | |
|     <li>Establish and share a session key between client and server</li>
 | |
|     <li>Optionally authenticate the server to the client</li>
 | |
|     <li>Optionally authenticate the client to the server</li>
 | |
|     </ol>
 | |
| 
 | |
|     <p>The first step, Cipher Suite Negotiation, allows the client and
 | |
|     server to choose a Cipher Suite supported by both of them. The SSL3.0
 | |
|     protocol specification defines 31 Cipher Suites. A Cipher Suite is
 | |
|     defined by the following components:</p>
 | |
| 
 | |
|     <ul>
 | |
|     <li>Key Exchange Method</li>
 | |
|     <li>Cipher for Data Transfer</li>
 | |
|     <li>Message Digest for creating the Message Authentication Code (MAC)</li>
 | |
|     </ul>
 | |
| 
 | |
|     <p>These three elements are described in the sections that follow.</p>
 | |
| </section>
 | |
| 
 | |
| <section id="keyexchange">
 | |
| <title>Key Exchange Method</title>
 | |
|     <p>The key exchange method defines how the shared secret symmetric
 | |
|     cryptography key used for application data transfer will be agreed
 | |
|     upon by client and server. SSL 2.0 uses RSA key exchange only, while
 | |
|     SSL 3.0 supports a choice of key exchange algorithms including
 | |
|     RSA key exchange (when certificates are used), and Diffie-Hellman key
 | |
|     exchange (for exchanging keys without certificates, or without prior
 | |
|     communication between client and server).</p>
 | |
| 
 | |
|     <p>One variable in the choice of key exchange methods is digital
 | |
|     signatures -- whether or not to use them, and if so, what kind of
 | |
|     signatures to use. Signing with a private key provides protection
 | |
|     against a man-in-the-middle-attack during the information exchange
 | |
|     used to generating the shared key [<a href="#AC96">AC96</a>, p516].</p>
 | |
| </section>
 | |
| 
 | |
| <section id="ciphertransfer">
 | |
| <title>Cipher for Data Transfer</title>
 | |
|     <p>SSL uses conventional symmetric cryptography, as described earlier,
 | |
|     for encrypting messages in a session.
 | |
|     There are nine choices of how to encrypt, including the option not to
 | |
|     encrypt:</p>
 | |
| 
 | |
|     <ul>
 | |
|     <li>No encryption</li>
 | |
|     <li>Stream Ciphers
 | |
|         <ul>
 | |
|         <li>RC4 with 40-bit keys</li>
 | |
|         <li>RC4 with 128-bit keys</li>
 | |
|         </ul></li>
 | |
|     <li>CBC Block Ciphers
 | |
|         <ul><li>RC2 with 40 bit key</li>
 | |
|         <li>DES with 40 bit key</li>
 | |
|         <li>DES with 56 bit key</li>
 | |
|         <li>Triple-DES with 168 bit key</li>
 | |
|         <li>Idea (128 bit key)</li>
 | |
|         <li>Fortezza (96 bit key)</li>
 | |
|         </ul></li>
 | |
|     </ul>
 | |
| 
 | |
|     <p>"CBC" refers to Cipher Block Chaining, which means that a
 | |
|     portion of the previously encrypted cipher text is used in the
 | |
|     encryption of the current block. "DES" refers to the Data Encryption
 | |
|     Standard [<a href="#AC96">AC96</a>, ch12], which has a number of
 | |
|     variants (including DES40 and 3DES_EDE). "Idea" is currently one of
 | |
|     the best and cryptographically strongest algorithms available,
 | |
|     and "RC2" is a proprietary algorithm from RSA DSI [<a href="#AC96"
 | |
|     >AC96</a>, ch13].</p>
 | |
| </section>
 | |
| 
 | |
| <section id="digestfuntion">
 | |
| <title>Digest Function</title>
 | |
|     <p>The choice of digest function determines how a digest is created
 | |
|     from a record unit. SSL supports the following:</p>
 | |
| 
 | |
|     <ul>
 | |
|     <li>No digest (Null choice)</li>
 | |
|     <li>MD5, a 128-bit hash</li>
 | |
|     <li>Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA-1), a 160-bit hash</li>
 | |
|     </ul>
 | |
| 
 | |
|     <p>The message digest is used to create a Message Authentication Code
 | |
|     (MAC) which is encrypted with the message to verify integrity and to
 | |
|     protect against replay attacks.</p>
 | |
| </section>
 | |
| 
 | |
| <section id="handshake">
 | |
| <title>Handshake Sequence Protocol</title>
 | |
|     <p>The handshake sequence uses three protocols:</p>
 | |
| 
 | |
|     <ul>
 | |
|     <li>The <dfn>SSL Handshake Protocol</dfn>
 | |
|     for performing the client and server SSL session establishment.</li>
 | |
|     <li>The <dfn>SSL Change Cipher Spec Protocol</dfn> for actually
 | |
|     establishing agreement on the Cipher Suite for the session.</li>
 | |
|     <li>The <dfn>SSL Alert Protocol</dfn> for conveying SSL error
 | |
|     messages between client and server.</li>
 | |
|     </ul>
 | |
| 
 | |
|     <p>These protocols, as well as application protocol data, are
 | |
|     encapsulated in the <dfn>SSL Record Protocol</dfn>, as shown in
 | |
|     <a href="#figure2">Figure 2</a>. An encapsulated protocol is
 | |
|     transferred as data by the lower layer protocol, which does not
 | |
|     examine the data. The encapsulated protocol has no knowledge of the
 | |
|     underlying protocol.</p>
 | |
| 
 | |
|     <p class="figure">
 | |
|     <img src="../images/ssl_intro_fig2.gif" alt="" width="428"
 | |
|         height="217" /><br />
 | |
|     <a id="figure2" name="figure2"><dfn>Figure 2</dfn></a>: SSL Protocol Stack
 | |
|     </p>
 | |
| 
 | |
|     <p>The encapsulation of SSL control protocols by the record protocol
 | |
|     means that if an active session is renegotiated the control protocols
 | |
|     will be transmitted securely. If there was no previous session,
 | |
|     the Null cipher suite is used, which means there will be no encryption and
 | |
|     messages will have no integrity digests, until the session has been
 | |
|     established.</p>
 | |
| </section>
 | |
| 
 | |
| <section id="datatransfer">
 | |
| <title>Data Transfer</title>
 | |
|     <p>The SSL Record Protocol, shown in <a href="#figure3">Figure 3</a>,
 | |
|     is used to transfer application and SSL Control data between the
 | |
|     client and server, where necessary fragmenting this data into smaller units,
 | |
|     or combining multiple higher level protocol data messages into single
 | |
|     units. It may compress, attach digest signatures, and encrypt these
 | |
|     units before transmitting them using the underlying reliable transport
 | |
|     protocol (Note: currently, no major SSL implementations include support
 | |
|     for compression).</p>
 | |
| 
 | |
|     <p class="figure">
 | |
|     <img src="../images/ssl_intro_fig3.gif" alt="" width="423"
 | |
|         height="323" /><br />
 | |
|     <a id="figure3" name="figure3"><dfn>Figure 3</dfn></a>: SSL Record Protocol
 | |
|     </p>
 | |
| </section>
 | |
| 
 | |
| <section id="securehttp">
 | |
| <title>Securing HTTP Communication</title>
 | |
|     <p>One common use of SSL is to secure Web HTTP communication between
 | |
|     a browser and a webserver. This does not preclude the use of
 | |
|     non-secured HTTP - the secure version (called HTTPS) is the same as
 | |
|     plain HTTP over SSL, but uses the URL scheme <code>https</code>
 | |
|     rather than <code>http</code>, and a different server port (by default,
 | |
|     port 443). This functionality is a large part of what <module
 | |
|     >mod_ssl</module> provides for the Apache webserver.</p>
 | |
| </section>
 | |
| </section>
 | |
| <!-- /ssl -->
 | |
| 
 | |
| <section id="references">
 | |
| <title>References</title>
 | |
| <dl>
 | |
| <dt><a id="AC96" name="AC96">[AC96]</a></dt>
 | |
| <dd>Bruce Schneier, <q>Applied Cryptography</q>, 2nd Edition, Wiley,
 | |
| 1996. See <a href="http://www.counterpane.com/"
 | |
| >http://www.counterpane.com/</a> for various other materials by Bruce
 | |
| Schneier.</dd>
 | |
| 
 | |
| <dt><a id="ASN1" name="ASN1">[ASN1]</a></dt>
 | |
| <dd>ITU-T Recommendation X.208, <q>Specification of Abstract Syntax Notation
 | |
| One (ASN.1)</q>, last updated 2008. See <a href="http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/asn1/"
 | |
| >http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/asn1/</a>.
 | |
| </dd>
 | |
| 
 | |
| <dt><a id="X509" name="X509">[X509]</a></dt>
 | |
| <dd>ITU-T Recommendation X.509, <q>The Directory - Authentication
 | |
| Framework</q>. For references, see <a
 | |
| href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.509"
 | |
| >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.509</a>.
 | |
| </dd>
 | |
| 
 | |
| <dt><a id="PKCS" name="PKCS">[PKCS]</a></dt>
 | |
| <dd><q>Public Key Cryptography Standards (PKCS)</q>,
 | |
| RSA Laboratories Technical Notes, See <a
 | |
| href="http://www.rsasecurity.com/rsalabs/pkcs/"
 | |
| >http://www.rsasecurity.com/rsalabs/pkcs/</a>.</dd>
 | |
| 
 | |
| <dt><a id="MIME" name="MIME">[MIME]</a></dt>
 | |
| <dd>N. Freed, N. Borenstein, <q>Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
 | |
| (MIME) Part One: Format of Internet Message Bodies</q>, RFC2045.
 | |
| See for instance <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2045"
 | |
| >http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2045</a>.</dd>
 | |
| 
 | |
| <dt><a id="SSL3" name="SSL3">[SSL3]</a></dt>
 | |
| <dd>Alan O. Freier, Philip Karlton, Paul C. Kocher, <q>The SSL Protocol
 | |
| Version 3.0</q>, 1996. See <a
 | |
| href="http://www.netscape.com/eng/ssl3/draft302.txt"
 | |
| >http://www.netscape.com/eng/ssl3/draft302.txt</a>.</dd>
 | |
| 
 | |
| <dt><a id="TLS1" name="TLS1">[TLS1]</a></dt>
 | |
| <dd>Tim Dierks, Christopher Allen, <q>The TLS Protocol Version 1.0</q>,
 | |
| 1999. See <a href="http://ietf.org/rfc/rfc2246.txt"
 | |
| >http://ietf.org/rfc/rfc2246.txt</a>.</dd>
 | |
| 
 | |
| <dt><a id="TLS11" name="TLS11">[TLS11]</a></dt>
 | |
| <dd><q>The TLS Protocol Version 1.1</q>,
 | |
| 2006. See <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4346"
 | |
| >http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4346</a>.</dd>
 | |
| 
 | |
| <dt><a id="TLS12" name="TLS12">[TLS12]</a></dt>
 | |
| <dd><q>The TLS Protocol Version 1.2</q>,
 | |
| 2008. See <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5246"
 | |
| >http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5246</a>.</dd>
 | |
| </dl>
 | |
| </section>
 | |
| <!-- /references -->
 | |
| 
 | |
| </manualpage>
 |