1999 2010 Ericsson AB. All Rights Reserved.
The contents of this file are subject to the Erlang Public License, Version 1.1, (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You should have received a copy of the Erlang Public License along with this software. If not, it can be retrieved online at http://www.erlang.org/. Software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing rights and limitations under the License.

SSL Release Notes

Peter Högfeldt
2003-08-03
G notes.xml

This document describes the changes made to the SSL application.

## SSL 4.1

### Improvements and New Features

Updated ssl to ignore CA certs that violate the asn1-spec for a certificate, and updated public key asn1 spec to handle inherited DSS-params.

Own Id: OTP-7884

Changed ssl implementation to retain backwards compatibility for old option {verify, 0} that shall be equivalent to {verify, verify_none}, also separate the cases unknown ca and selfsigned peer cert, and restored return value of deprecated function public_key:pem_to_der/1.

Own Id: OTP-8858

Changed the verify fun so that it differentiate between the peer certificate and CA certificates by using valid_peer or valid as the second argument to the verify fun. It may not always be trivial or even possible to know when the peer certificate is reached otherwise.

*** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***

Own Id: OTP-8873

## SSL 4.0.1

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

The server now verifies the client certificate verify message correctly, instead of causing a case-clause.

Own Id: OTP-8721

The client hello message now always include ALL available cipher suites (or those specified by the ciphers option). Previous implementation would filter them based on the client certificate key usage extension (such filtering only makes sense for the server certificate).

Own Id: OTP-8772

Fixed handling of the option {mode, list} that was broken for some packet types for instance line.

Own Id: OTP-8785

Empty packets were not delivered to the client.

Own Id: OTP-8790

Building in a source tree without prebuilt platform independent build results failed on the SSL examples when:

cross building. This has been solved by not building the SSL examples during a cross build. building on Windows.

Own Id: OTP-8791

Fixed a handshake error which occurred on some ssl implementations.

Own Id: OTP-8793

### Improvements and New Features

Revise the public_key API - Cleaned up and documented the public_key API to make it useful for general use, also changed ssl to use the new API.

Own Id: OTP-8722

Added support for inputing certificates and keys directly in DER format these options will override the pem-file options if specified.

Own Id: OTP-8723

To gain interoperability ssl will not check for padding errors when using TLS 1.0. It is first in TLS 1.1 that checking the padding is an requirement.

Own Id: OTP-8740

Changed the semantics of the verify_fun option in the ssl-application so that it takes care of both application handling of path validation errors and verification of application specific extensions. This means that it is now possible for the server application in verify_peer mode to handle path validation errors. This change moved some functionality earlier in ssl to the public_key application.

Own Id: OTP-8770

Added the functionality so that the verification fun will be called when a certificate is considered valid by the path validation to allow access to each certificate in the path to the user application. Also try to verify subject-AltName, if unable to verify it let the application verify it.

Own Id: OTP-8825

## SSL 4.0

### Improvements and New Features

New ssl now support client/server-certificates signed by dsa keys.

Own Id: OTP-8587

Ssl has now switched default implementation and removed deprecated certificate handling. All certificate handling is done by the public_key application.

Own Id: OTP-8695

## SSL 3.11.1

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

Fixed handling of several ssl/tls packets arriving at the same time. This was broken during a refactoring of the code.

Own Id: OTP-8679

### Improvements and New Features

Added missing checks for padding and Mac value. Removed code for export ciphers and DH certificates as we decided not to support them.

Own Id: OTP-7047

New ssl will no longer return esslerrssl to be backwards compatible with old ssl as this hids infomation from the user. format_error/1 has been updated to support new ssl.

*** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***

Own Id: OTP-7049

New ssl now supports secure renegotiation as described by RFC 5746.

Own Id: OTP-8568

Alert handling has been improved to better handle unexpected but valid messages and the implementation is also changed to avoid timing related issues that could cause different error messages depending on network latency. Packet handling was sort of broken but would mostly work as expected when socket was in binary mode. This has now been fixed.

Own Id: OTP-8588

## SSL 3.11

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

Fixes handling of the option fail_if_no_peer_cert and some undocumented options. Thanks to Rory Byrne.

Own Id: OTP-8557

### Improvements and New Features

Support for Diffie-Hellman. ssl-3.11 requires public_key-0.6.

Own Id: OTP-7046

New ssl now properly handles ssl renegotiation, and initiates a renegotiation if ssl/ltls-sequence numbers comes close to the max value. However RFC-5746 is not yet supported, but will be in an upcoming release.

Own Id: OTP-8517

When gen_tcp is configured with the {packet,http} option, it automatically switches to expect HTTP Headers after a HTTP Request/Response line has been received. This update fixes ssl to behave in the same way. Thanks to Rory Byrne.

Own Id: OTP-8545

Ssl now correctly verifies the extended_key_usage extension and also allows the user to verify application specific extensions by supplying an appropriate fun.

Own Id: OTP-8554 Aux Id: OTP-8553

Fixed ssl:transport_accept/2 to return properly when socket is closed. Thanks to Rory Byrne.

Own Id: OTP-8560

## SSL 3.10.9

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

Fixed a crash in the certificate certification part.

Own Id: OTP-8510 Aux Id: seq11525

## SSL 3.10.8

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

ssl:send/2 ignored packet option, fix provided by YAMASHINA Hio.

Fixed a file cache bug which caused problems when the same file was used for both cert and cacert.

Allow ssl:listen/2 to be called with option {ssl_imp, old}.

Fixed ssl:setopts(Socket, binary) which didn't work for 'new' ssl.

.

Own Id: OTP-8441

Do a controlled shutdown if a non ssl packet arrives as the first packet.

Own Id: OTP-8459 Aux Id: seq11505

### Improvements and New Features

Fixed session reuse (in new_ssl), thanks Wil Tan.

Send CA list during Certificate Request (in new_ssl) , thanks Wil Tan.

NOTE: SSL (new_ssl) requires public_key-0.5.

Own Id: OTP-8372

## SSL 3.10.7

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

A ticker process could potentially be blocked indefinitely trying to send a tick to a node not responding. If this happened, the connection would not be brought down as it should.

This requires erts-5.7.4 and kernel-2.13.4 or later to be able to get the erlang distribution over ssl to work.

Own Id: OTP-8218

### Improvements and New Features

The documentation is now built with open source tools (xsltproc and fop) that exists on most platforms. One visible change is that the frames are removed.

Own Id: OTP-8250

Code cleanup from Kostis.

Own Id: OTP-8260

## SSL 3.10.6

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

The ssl:ssl_accept/3 issue was not properly fixed in the previous patch, see OTP-8244.

Own Id: OTP-8275 Aux Id: seq11451

## SSL 3.10.5

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

Allow clients to not send certificates if option fail_if_no_peer_cert was not set.

Own Id: OTP-8224

A ssl:ssl_accept/3 could crash a connection if the timing was wrong.

Removed info message if the socket closed without a proper disconnect from the ssl layer.

ssl:send/2 is now blocking until the message is sent.

Own Id: OTP-8244 Aux Id: seq11420

## SSL 3.10.4

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

A client could avoid a certificate check if the client code didn't send the requested certificate.

Own Id: OTP-8137

## SSL 3.10.3

### Improvements and New Features

Packet handling was not implemented correctly.

Inet option handling support have been improved.

The verify_fun is now invoked even if verify_peer is used, that implies that by default {bad_cert,unknown_ca} is an accepted fault during the client connection phase. The check can still be done by suppling another verify_fun.

Own Id: OTP-8011 Aux Id: seq11287

## SSL 3.10.2

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

A "new_ssl" socket was not closed if the controlling process died without calling ssl:close/1.

Own Id: OTP-7963 Aux Id: seq11276

## SSL 3.10.1

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

Fixed bug that caused the ssl handshake finished message to be calculated wrongly under the circumstances that the server did not send the trusted cert and that the previous cert did not have the extension telling us the trusted certs name. This manifested it self as bad_record_mac alert from the server.

Own Id: OTP-7878

### Improvements and New Features

The cacertsfile option is now optional for ssl servers.

Own Id: OTP-7656

For the ssl client the options cacertfile, certfile and keyfile are now optional as they are not always needed depending on configuration of the client itself and the configuration of the server. Also as PEM-files may contain more than one entry the keyfile option will default to the same file as given by the certfile option.

Own Id: OTP-7870

Added new ssl client option verify_fun.

Own Id: OTP-7871

## SSL 3.10

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

Error log entries are now formatted correctly.

Own Id: OTP-7258

### Improvements and New Features

All handling of X509-certificates and public keys have been moved to the new application public_key.

Own Id: OTP-6894

New ssl now supports SSL-3.0 and TLS-1.0

Own Id: OTP-7037

New ssl now supports all inet-packet types.

Own Id: OTP-7039

The new ssl-server is now able to send a certificate request to the client. However new options may be introduced later to fully support all features regarding certificate requests.

Own Id: OTP-7150

### Known Bugs and Problems

Running erlang distribution over ssl don't work as described in the documentation.

Own Id: OTP-7536

## SSL 3.9

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

ssl_prim.erl was passing an FD rather than an #sslsocket to ssl_broker:ssl_accept_prim. This could cause problems in the deprecated accept function, this will not cause any more problems however this function is deprecated!

Own Id: OTP-6926

Erlang distribution over ssl was broken after R11B-0, this has now been fixed.

Own Id: OTP-7004

### Improvements and New Features

All inet options are available in the new ssl implementation that is released as a alfa in ssl-3.9 and will replace the old implementation in ssl-4.0. This will not be fixed in the old implementation.

Own Id: OTP-4677

The new ssl implementation released as a alfa in this version supports upgrading of a tcp connection to a ssl connection so that http client and servers may implement RFC 2817.

Own Id: OTP-5510

A new implementation of ssl is released as a alfa version in ssl-3.9 it will later replace the old implementation in ssl-4.0. The new implementation can be accessed by providing the option {ssl_imp, new} to the ssl:connect and ssl:listen functions.

The new implementation is Erlang based and all logic is in Erlang and only payload encryption calculations are done in C via the crypto application. The main reason for making a new implementation is that the old solution was very crippled as the control of the ssl-socket was deep down in openssl making it hard if not impossible to support all inet options, ipv6 and upgrade of a tcp connection to a ssl connection. The alfa version has a few limitations that will be removed before the ssl-4.0 release. Main differences and limitations in the alfa are listed below.

New ssl requires the crypto application. The option reuseaddr is supported and the default value is false as in gen_tcp. Old ssl is patched to accept that the option is set to true to provide a smoother migration between the versions. In old ssl the option is hard coded to true. ssl:version/0 is replaced by ssl:versions/0 ssl:ciphers/0 is replaced by ssl:cipher_suites/0 ssl:pid/1 is a meaningless function in new ssl and will be deprecated in ssl-4.0 until it is removed it will return a valid but meaningless pid. New API functions are ssl:shutdown/2, ssl:cipher_suites/[0,1] and ssl:versions/0 Diffie-Hellman keyexchange is not supported. Not all inet packet types are supported. CRL and policy certificate extensions are not supported. In this alfa only sslv3 is enabled, although tlsv1 and tlsv1.1 versions are implemented and will be supported in future versions. For security reasons sslv2 is not supported.

Own Id: OTP-6619

New ssl implementation, released as alfa in ssl-3.9, supports ipv6. It will not be supported in the old implementation.

Own Id: OTP-6637 Aux Id: OTP-6636

## SSL 3.1.1.1

### Minor Makefile changes

Removed use of erl_flags from Makefile.

Own Id: OTP-6689

## SSL 3.1.1

### Crash on error in ssl_accept

A bug in ssl_accept could cause all ssl connections to hang when a connection attempt was closed by the client while the server was in ssl_accept.

Own Id: OTP-6612 Aux Id: seq10599

## SSL 3.1

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

SSL now uses a two-phase accept, with a separate accept calls for the socket and the ssl protocol. This avoids timeouts when a client doesn't initiate ssl handshake.

With the old implementation of accept, the server was locked by a client, if the client didn't do proper ssl handshake.

Own Id: OTP-6418 Aux Id: seq10105

## SSL 3.0.12

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

An integer array pointing to a struct pollfd array, is now reset before file descriptors are collected to be included in a call to poll(). This is to prevent file descriptors to be mixed up.

Own Id: OTP-6084

The generation of the module ssl_pkix_oid contained multiple identifiers, which made the mapping between atoms and identifiers not one-to-one.

Own Id: OTP-6085

## SSL 3.0.11

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

The state of a connection in active mode could be in a restrictive state, so that an internal tcp_closed message was incorrectly considered illegal, resulting in a premature termination of the connection process.

Own Id: OTP-5972 Aux Id: seq10188

## SSL 3.0.10

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

Erlang distribution over SSL was broken. Corrected. (Thanks to Fredrik Thulin.)

Own Id: OTP-5863

## SSL 3.0.9

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

The port program for the ssl application could waste huge amounts of CPU time if a write could not be completed directly and was put in the write queue. (Only on platforms where poll() is used, such as Solaris and Linux.)

Own Id: OTP-5784

## SSL 3.0.8

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

A process reading only a portion of a sufficiently large amount of data from an accepted socket, and then quering the ssl library (e.g. ssl:getpeername()), would cause a global deadlock in the esock port program.

Own Id: OTP-5702

A spelling error in the module ssl_pkix caused the call to ssl:peercert/2 to fail when the option subject was used.

Own Id: OTP-5708

Because fopen() on Solaris 8 can't handle file descriptor numbers above 255, reading of certificate files would fail if all file descriptors below 256 were in use (typically, if many connections were open). This problem has been worked around.

The ssl application's port program used to use select(), which meant that it could not handle more than FD_SETSIZE file descriptors (usually 1024). To eliminate that limitation, poll() is now used on all platforms that support it.

Solaris/Sparc, 64-bit emulator: The SO_REUSEADDR option was not set for listen sockets, which essentially made the ssl application unusable. Corrected.

The default listen queue size for ssl port program was changed to 128 (from 5).

Own Id: OTP-5755 Aux Id: seq10068

## Ssl 3.0.7

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

The R/W buffer length i esock.c was too small. It has been increased from 4k to 32k.

Own Id: OTP-5620

## Ssl 3.0.6

### Improvements and New Features

A configuration option for choosing protocol versions has been added (sslv2, sslv3, and tlsv1).

Own Id: OTP-5429 Aux Id: seq9755

## Ssl 3.0.5

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

Linked in drivers in the crypto, and asn1 applications are now compiled with the -D_THREAD_SAFE and -D_REENTRANT switches on unix when the emulator has thread support enabled.

Linked in drivers on MacOSX are not compiled with the undocumented -lbundle1.o switch anymore. Thanks to Sean Hinde who sent us a patch.

Linked in driver in crypto, and port programs in ssl, now compiles on OSF1.

Minor makefile improvements in runtime_tools.

Own Id: OTP-5346

## Ssl 3.0.4

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

ssl:recv/3 with finite timeout value, closed the connection at timeout.

Own Id: OTP-4882

## Ssl 3.0.3

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

When a file descriptor was marked for closing, and end-of-file condition had already been detected, the file descriptor was never closed.

Own Id: OTP-5093 Aux Id: seq8806

When the number of open file descriptors reached FD_SETSIZE, the SSL port program entered a busy loop.

Own Id: OTP-5094 Aux Id: seq8806

### Improvements and New Features

The SSL application now supports SSL sessions for servers, which typically speeds up HTTP requests from browsers.

Own Id: OTP-5095

## SSL 3.0.2

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

The UTF8String type is now defined in asn1-1.4.4.2 and later. Therefore the definitions of UTF8String has been removed from the ASN.1 modules PKIX1Explicit88.asn1 and PKIXAttributeCertificate.asn1. The SSL application can now only be built using asn-1.4.4.2 or later.

OwnId: OTP-4971.

### Known Bugs and Problems

See SSL-3.0.

## SSL 3.0.1

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

An unexpected object identifier would crash ssl:peercert.

OwnId: OTP-4771.

### Known Bugs and Problems

See SSL-3.0.

## SSL 3.0

### Improvements and New Features

The cache_timout option was silently ignored. It had to do with SSL sessions, where multiple connections can occur. Since the Erlang SSL application does not support sessions the option is still ignored, and consequently the documentation about it has been removed.

OwnId: OTP-3146

The Erlang SSL application is now based on OpenSSL version 0.9.7a. OpenSSL 0.9.6 should also work.

OwnId: OTP-4002

When connecting it is now possible to bind to a local address and local port.

OwnId: OTP-4675

The ssl_esock port program is now part of the distribution and thus does not have to be created explicitly. It is dynamically linked to OpenSSL libraries in a "standard" location (typically /usr/local/lib on UNIX; in the path on Win32).

OwnId: OTP-4676

The new functions ssl:peercert/1/2 provide information from the certificate of a peer of a connection.

OwnId: OTP-4680
Aux Id: seq7688

The function ssl:port/1 has been removed from the documentation, but not from the ssl interface module. The recommendation is to use ssl:peername/1 instead, which provides both address and port of the peer.

OwnId: OTP-4681

New User's Guide documentation has been added.

OwnId: OTP-4682

The old ssl_socket interface has been removed and also the documentation of it.

OwnId: OTP-4683

The use of ephemeral RSA keys is now supported. It is a global configuration option (see the ssl(6) manual page).

OwnId: OTP-4691.

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

The option cacertfile is now in effect, and can therefore no longer be set with the OS environment variable SSL_CERT_FILE (which did set the same value for all connections).

OwnId: OTP-3146

There was a synchronization error at closing of an SSL connection.

OwnId: OTP-4435
Aux Id: seq7534

C macros in debuglog.c were not ANSI C compliant.

OwnId: OTP-4674

The binary option was not properly handled.

OwnId: OTP-4678

The ssl:format_error/1 did not consider inet error codes, nor did it have a catch all for unknown error codes.

OwnId: OTP-4679

### Known Bugs and Problems

Change of controlling process in not OTP compliant.

OwnId; OTP-4712

There is still no way to restrict the cipher sizes.

OwnId: OTP-4712

The keep_alive and reuse_addr options will be added in a future release.

OwnId: OTP-4677

There is currently no way to restrict the SSL/TLS protocol versions to use. In a future release this will be supported as a configuration option, and as an option for each connection as well.

OwnId: OTP-4711.

## SSL 2.3.6

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

There was a synchronization error at closing, which could result in that an SSL socket was removed prematurely, resulting in that a user process referring to it received an unexpected exit.

OwnId: OTP-4435
Aux Id: seq7600

### Known Bugs and Problems

See SSL 2.2 .

## SSL 2.3.5

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

Setting of the option `nodelay' caused the SSL port program to dump core.

OwnId: OTP-4380
Aux Id: -

Setting of the option '{active, once}' in setopts was wrong, causing a correct socket message to be regarded as erroneous.

OwnId: OTP-4380
Aux Id: -

A self-signed peer certificate was always rejected with the error `eselfsignedcert', irrespective of the `depth' value.

OwnId: OTP-4374
Aux Id: seq7417

### Known Bugs and Problems

See SSL 2.2 .

## SSL 2.3.4

### Improvements and New Features

All TCP options allowed in gen_tcp, are now also allowed in SSL, except the option {reuseaddr, Boolean}. A new function getopts has been added to the SSL interface module ssl.

OwnId: OTP-4305, OTP-4159

## SSL 2.3.3

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

The roles of the SSLeay and OpenSSL packages has been clarified in the ssl(6) application manual page. Also the URLs from which to download SSLeay has been updated.

OwnId: OTP-4002
Aux Id: seq5269

A call to ssl:listen(Port, Options) with Options = [] resulted in the cryptic {error, ebadf} return value. The return value has been changed to {error, enooptions}, and the behaviour has been documented in the listen/2 function.

OwnId: OTP-4016
Aux Id: seq7006

Use of the option {nodelay, boolean()} crashed the ssl_server.

OwnId: OTP-4070
Aux Id:

A bug caused the Erlang distribution over ssl to fail. This bug has now been fixed.

OwnId: OTP-4072
Aux Id:

On Windows when the SSL port program encountered an error code not anticipated it crashed.

OwnId: OTP-4132
Aux Id:

## SSL 2.3.2

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

The ssl:accept/1-2 function sometimes returned {error, {What, Where}} instead of {error, What}, where What is an atom.

OwnId: OTP-3775
Aux Id: seq4991

## SSL 2.3.1

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

Sometimes the SSL portprogram would loop in an accept loop, without terminating even when the SSL application was stopped..

OwnId: OTP-3691

## SSL 2.3

Functions have been added to SSL to experimentally support Erlang distribution.

## SSL 2.2.1

The 2.2.1 version of SSL provides code replacement in runtime by upgrading from, or downgrading to, versions 2.1 and 2.2.

## SSL 2.2

### Improvements and New Features

The restriction that only the creator of an SSL socket can read from and write to the socket has been lifted.

OwnId: OTP-3301

The option {packet, cdr} for SSL sockets has been added, which means that SSL sockets also supports CDR encoded packets.

OwnId: OTP-3302

### Known Bugs and Problems

Setting of a CA certificate file with the cacertfile option (in calls to ssl:accept/1/2 or ssl:connect/3/4) does not work due to weaknesses in the SSLeay package.

A work-around is to set the OS environment variable SSL_CERT_FILE before SSL is started. However, then the CA certificate file will be global for all connections.

OwnId: OTP-3146

When changing controlling process of an SSL socket, a temporary process is started, which is not gen_server compliant.

OwnId: OTP-3146

Although there is a cache timeout option, it is silently ignored.

OwnId: OTP-3146

There is currently no way to restrict the cipher sizes.

OwnId: OTP-3146

## SSL 2.1

### Improvements and New Features

The set of possible error reasons has been extended to contain diagnostics on erroneous certificates and failures to verify certificates.

OwnId: OTP-3145

The maximum number of simultaneous SSL connections on Windows has been increased from 31 to 127.

OwnId: OTP-3145

### Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

A dead-lock occurring when write queues are not empty has been removed.

OwnId: OTP-3145

Error reasons have been unified and changed.

(** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY **)

OwnId: OTP-3145

On Windows a check of the existence of the environment variable ERLSRV_SERVICE_NAME has been added. If that variable is defined, the port program of the SSL application will not terminated when a user logs off.

OwnId: OTP-3145

An error in the setting of the nodelay option has been corrected.

OwnId: OTP-3145

The confounded notions of verify mode and verify depth has been corrected. The option verifydepth has been removed, and the two separate options verify and depth has been added.

(** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY **)

OwnId: OTP-3145

### Known Bugs and Problems

Setting of a CA certificate file with the cacertfile option (in calls to ssl:accept/1/2 or ssl:connect/3/4) does not work due to weaknesses in the SSLeay package.

A work-around is to set the OS environment variable SSL_CERT_FILE before SSL is started. However, then the CA certificate file will be global for all connections.

OwnId: OTP-3146

When changing controlling process of an SSL socket, a temporary process is started, which is not gen_server compliant.

OwnId: OTP-3146

Although there is a cache timeout option, it is silently ignored.

OwnId: OTP-3146

There is currently no way to restrict the cipher sizes.

OwnId: OTP-3146

## SSL 2.0

A complete new version of SSL with separate I/O channels for all connections with non-blocking I/O multiplexing.