Apache Module mod_ssl

SSLCACertificateFile Directive

This directive sets the all-in-one file where you can assemble the Certificates of Certification Authorities (CA) whose clients you deal with. These are used for Client Authentication. Such a file is simply the concatenation of the various PEM-encoded Certificate files, in order of preference. This can be used alternatively and/or additionally to SSLCACertificatePath.

SSLCACertificateFile "/usr/local/apache2/conf/ssl.crt/ca-bundle-client.crt"

SSLCACertificatePath Directive

This directive sets the directory where you keep the Certificates of Certification Authorities (CAs) whose clients you deal with. These are used to verify the client certificate on Client Authentication.

The files in this directory have to be PEM-encoded and are accessed through hash filenames. So usually you can't just place the Certificate files there: you also have to create symbolic links named hash-value.N. And you should always make sure this directory contains the appropriate symbolic links.

SSLCACertificatePath "/usr/local/apache2/conf/ssl.crt/"

SSLCADNRequestFile Directive

When a client certificate is requested by mod_ssl, a list of acceptable Certificate Authority names is sent to the client in the SSL handshake. These CA names can be used by the client to select an appropriate client certificate out of those it has available.

If neither of the directives SSLCADNRequestPath or SSLCADNRequestFile are given, then the set of acceptable CA names sent to the client is the names of all the CA certificates given by the SSLCACertificateFile and SSLCACertificatePath directives; in other words, the names of the CAs which will actually be used to verify the client certificate.

In some circumstances, it is useful to be able to send a set of acceptable CA names which differs from the actual CAs used to verify the client certificate - for example, if the client certificates are signed by intermediate CAs. In such cases, SSLCADNRequestPath and/or SSLCADNRequestFile can be used; the acceptable CA names are then taken from the complete set of certificates in the directory and/or file specified by this pair of directives.

SSLCADNRequestFile must specify an all-in-one file containing a concatenation of PEM-encoded CA certificates.

SSLCADNRequestFile "/usr/local/apache2/conf/ca-names.crt"

SSLCADNRequestPath Directive

This optional directive can be used to specify the set of acceptable CA names which will be sent to the client when a client certificate is requested. See the SSLCADNRequestFile directive for more details.

The files in this directory have to be PEM-encoded and are accessed through hash filenames. So usually you can't just place the Certificate files there: you also have to create symbolic links named hash-value.N. And you should always make sure this directory contains the appropriate symbolic links.

SSLCADNRequestPath "/usr/local/apache2/conf/ca-names.crt/"

SSLCARevocationCheck Directive

Enables certificate revocation list (CRL) checking. At least one of SSLCARevocationFile or SSLCARevocationPath must be configured. When set to chain (recommended setting), CRL checks are applied to all certificates in the chain, while setting it to leaf limits the checks to the end-entity cert.

The available flags are:

• no_crl_for_cert_ok

  Prior to version 2.3.15, CRL checking in mod_ssl also succeeded when no CRL(s) for the checked certificate(s) were found in any of the locations configured with SSLCARevocationFile or SSLCARevocationPath.

  With the introduction of SSLCARevocationFile, the behavior has been changed: by default with chain or leaf, CRLs must be present for the validation to succeed - otherwise it will fail with an "unable to get certificate CRL" error.

  The flag no_crl_for_cert_ok allows to restore previous behaviour.

SSLCARevocationCheck chain

SSLCARevocationCheck chain no_crl_for_cert_ok

SSLCARevocationFile Directive

This directive sets the all-in-one file where you can assemble the Certificate Revocation Lists (CRL) of Certification Authorities (CA) whose clients you deal with. These are used for Client Authentication. Such a file is simply the concatenation of the various PEM-encoded CRL files, in order of preference. This can be used alternatively and/or additionally to SSLCARevocationPath.

SSLCARevocationFile "/usr/local/apache2/conf/ssl.crl/ca-bundle-client.crl"

SSLCARevocationPath Directive

This directive sets the directory where you keep the Certificate Revocation Lists (CRL) of Certification Authorities (CAs) whose clients you deal with. These are used to revoke the client certificate on Client Authentication.

The files in this directory have to be PEM-encoded and are accessed through hash filenames. So usually you have not only to place the CRL files there. Additionally you have to create symbolic links named hash-value.rN. And you should always make sure this directory contains the appropriate symbolic links.

SSLCARevocationPath "/usr/local/apache2/conf/ssl.crl/"

SSLCertificateChainFile Directive

This directive sets the optional all-in-one file where you can assemble the certificates of Certification Authorities (CA) which form the certificate chain of the server certificate. This starts with the issuing CA certificate of the server certificate and can range up to the root CA certificate. Such a file is simply the concatenation of the various PEM-encoded CA Certificate files, usually in certificate chain order.

This should be used alternatively and/or additionally to SSLCACertificatePath for explicitly constructing the server certificate chain which is sent to the browser in addition to the server certificate. It is especially useful to avoid conflicts with CA certificates when using client authentication. Because although placing a CA certificate of the server certificate chain into SSLCACertificatePath has the same effect for the certificate chain construction, it has the side-effect that client certificates issued by this same CA certificate are also accepted on client authentication.

But be careful: Providing the certificate chain works only if you are using a single RSA or DSA based server certificate. If you are using a coupled RSA+DSA certificate pair, this will work only if actually both certificates use the same certificate chain. Else the browsers will be confused in this situation.

SSLCertificateChainFile "/usr/local/apache2/conf/ssl.crt/ca.crt"

SSLCertificateFile Directive

This directive points to a file with certificate data in PEM format, or the certificate identifier through a configured cryptographic token. If using a PEM file, at minimum, the file must include an end-entity (leaf) certificate. The directive can be used multiple times (referencing different filenames) to support multiple algorithms for server authentication - typically RSA, DSA, and ECC. The number of supported algorithms depends on the OpenSSL version being used for mod_ssl: with version 1.0.0 or later, openssl list-public-key-algorithms will output a list of supported algorithms, see also the note below about limitations of OpenSSL versions prior to 1.0.2 and the ways to work around them.

The files may also include intermediate CA certificates, sorted from leaf to root. This is supported with version 2.4.8 and later, and obsoletes SSLCertificateChainFile. When running with OpenSSL 1.0.2 or later, this allows to configure the intermediate CA chain on a per-certificate basis.

Custom DH parameters and an EC curve name for ephemeral keys, can also be added to end of the first file configured using SSLCertificateFile. This is supported in version 2.4.7 or later. Such parameters can be generated using the commands openssl dhparam and openssl ecparam. The parameters can be added as-is to the end of the first certificate file. Only the first file can be used for custom parameters, as they are applied independently of the authentication algorithm type.

Finally the end-entity certificate's private key can also be added to the certificate file instead of using a separate SSLCertificateKeyFile directive. This practice is highly discouraged. If it is used, the certificate files using such an embedded key must be configured after the certificates using a separate key file. If the private key is encrypted, the pass phrase dialog is forced at startup time.

As an alternative to storing certificates and private keys in files, a certificate identifier can be used to identify a certificate stored in a token. Currently, only PKCS#11 URIs are recognized as certificate identifiers, and can be used in conjunction with the OpenSSL pkcs11 engine. If SSLCertificateKeyFile is omitted, the certificate and private key can be loaded through the single identifier specified with SSLCertificateFile.

# Example using a PEM-encoded file.
SSLCertificateFile "/usr/local/apache2/conf/ssl.crt/server.crt"
# Example use of a certificate and private key from a PKCS#11 token:
SSLCertificateFile "pkcs11:token=My%20Token%20Name;id=45"

SSLCertificateKeyFile Directive

This directive points to the PEM-encoded private key file for the server, or the key ID through a configured cryptographic token. If the contained private key is encrypted, the pass phrase dialog is forced at startup time.

The directive can be used multiple times (referencing different filenames) to support multiple algorithms for server authentication. For each SSLCertificateKeyFile directive, there must be a matching SSLCertificateFile directive.

The private key may also be combined with the certificate in the file given by SSLCertificateFile, but this practice is highly discouraged. If it is used, the certificate files using such an embedded key must be configured after the certificates using a separate key file.

As an alternative to storing private keys in files, a key identifier can be used to identify a private key stored in a token. Currently, only PKCS#11 URIs are recognized as private key identifiers, and can be used in conjunction with the OpenSSL pkcs11 engine.

# To use a private key from a PEM-encoded file:
SSLCertificateKeyFile "/usr/local/apache2/conf/ssl.key/server.key"
# To use a private key from a PKCS#11 token:
SSLCertificateKeyFile "pkcs11:token=My%20Token%20Name;id=45"

SSLCipherSuite Directive

This complex directive uses a colon-separated cipher-spec string consisting of OpenSSL cipher specifications to configure the Cipher Suite the client is permitted to negotiate in the SSL handshake phase. The optional protocol specifier can configure the Cipher Suite for a specific SSL version. Possible values include "SSL" for all SSL Protocols up to and including TLSv1.2.

Notice that this directive can be used both in per-server and per-directory context. In per-server context it applies to the standard SSL handshake when a connection is established. In per-directory context it forces a SSL renegotiation with the reconfigured Cipher Suite after the HTTP request was read but before the HTTP response is sent.

If the SSL library supports TLSv1.3 (OpenSSL 1.1.1 and later), the protocol specifier "TLSv1.3" can be used to configure the cipher suites for that protocol. Since TLSv1.3 does not offer renegotiations, specifying ciphers for it in a directory context is not allowed.

For a list of TLSv1.3 cipher names, see the OpenSSL documentation.

An SSL cipher specification in cipher-spec is composed of 4 major attributes plus a few extra minor ones:

• Key Exchange Algorithm:
  RSA, Diffie-Hellman, Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman, Secure Remote Password
• Authentication Algorithm:
  RSA, Diffie-Hellman, DSS, ECDSA, or none.
• Cipher/Encryption Algorithm:
  AES, DES, Triple-DES, RC4, RC2, IDEA, etc.
• MAC Digest Algorithm:
  MD5, SHA or SHA1, SHA256, SHA384.

An SSL cipher can also be an export cipher. SSLv2 ciphers are no longer supported. To specify which ciphers to use, one can either specify all the Ciphers, one at a time, or use aliases to specify the preference and order for the ciphers (see Table 1). The actually available ciphers and aliases depends on the used openssl version. Newer openssl versions may include additional ciphers.

Now where this becomes interesting is that these can be put together to specify the order and ciphers you wish to use. To speed this up there are also aliases (SSLv3, TLSv1, EXP, LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH) for certain groups of ciphers. These tags can be joined together with prefixes to form the cipher-spec. Available prefixes are:

• none: add cipher to list
• +: move matching ciphers to the current location in list
• -: remove cipher from list (can be added later again)
• !: kill cipher from list completely (can not be added later again)

A simpler way to look at all of this is to use the ``openssl ciphers -v'' command which provides a nice way to successively create the correct cipher-spec string. The default cipher-spec string depends on the version of the OpenSSL libraries used. Let's suppose it is ``RC4-SHA:AES128-SHA:HIGH:MEDIUM:!aNULL:!MD5'' which means the following: Put RC4-SHA and AES128-SHA at the beginning. We do this, because these ciphers offer a good compromise between speed and security. Next, include high and medium security ciphers. Finally, remove all ciphers which do not authenticate, i.e. for SSL the Anonymous Diffie-Hellman ciphers, as well as all ciphers which use MD5 as hash algorithm, because it has been proven insufficient.

$ openssl ciphers -v 'RC4-SHA:AES128-SHA:HIGH:MEDIUM:!aNULL:!MD5'
RC4-SHA                 SSLv3 Kx=RSA      Au=RSA  Enc=RC4(128)  Mac=SHA1
AES128-SHA              SSLv3 Kx=RSA      Au=RSA  Enc=AES(128)  Mac=SHA1
DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA      SSLv3 Kx=DH       Au=RSA  Enc=AES(256)  Mac=SHA1
...                     ...               ...     ...           ...
SEED-SHA                SSLv3 Kx=RSA      Au=RSA  Enc=SEED(128) Mac=SHA1
PSK-RC4-SHA             SSLv3 Kx=PSK      Au=PSK  Enc=RC4(128)  Mac=SHA1
KRB5-RC4-SHA            SSLv3 Kx=KRB5     Au=KRB5 Enc=RC4(128)  Mac=SHA1

The complete list of particular RSA & DH ciphers for SSL is given in Table 2.

SSLCipherSuite RSA:!EXP:!NULL:+HIGH:+MEDIUM:-LOW

SSLCompression Directive

This directive allows to enable compression on the SSL level.

SSLCryptoDevice Directive

This directive enables use of a cryptographic hardware accelerator board to offload some of the SSL processing overhead. This directive can only be used if the SSL