Setting up an HTTPS Server
--------------------------
|
Standard settings
|
server {
listen 443 ssl;
ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
ssl_ciphers HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5;
...
}
|
HTTPS Server Optimization
-------------------------
- SSL operations
consume extra CPU resources
- the most
CPU-intensive is SSL handshake
- ways to minimize
number of operations per client
a. enable keepalive connections to send
several requests via one connection
b. reuse SSL session parameters to avoid
SSL handshakes for parallel and
subsequent connections
- sessions are stored
in the SSL session cache shared between worker
processes and configured by the
`ssl_session_cache` directive
- one megabyte of
cache contains about 4000 sessions
- default cache
timeout is 5 minutes
- timeout can be
increased using the `ssl_session_timeout` directive
|
Sample config
|
worker_processes
auto;
http {
ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:10m; # 10 MB ssl cache size
ssl_session_timeout 10m; # 10 minute timeout
server {
listen 443 ssl;
keepalive_timeout 70;
ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
ssl_ciphers HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5;
...
}
}
|
Optimizing SSL Session Cache
----------------------------
- SSL session cache
reduces number of SSL handshake (improves performance)
- It is set via
`ssl_session_cache` directive
- By default, Nginx
uses built-in type of session cache in your SSL library
* not optimal
* 1 worker process can use it
* causes memory fragmentation
- `shared` can be
added to `ssl_session_cache` to share cache among all worker
processes
* speeds up later connections
* connection setup is already known
- 1 MB cache size can
hold 4,000 sessions
- By default, Nginx
retain cache session parameters for 5 minutes
* can be changed using
`ssl_session_timeout`
* increase value reduces number of
time-consuming handshakes
* when increased, cache size needs also to
be increased
|
simple setup
|
ssl_session_cache;
|
|
cache shared among
workers
|
ssl_session_cache
shared:SSL:1m;
|
|
4 hour SSL session
timeout
|
ssl_session_timeout
4h;
|
|
combined config
|
server {
…
ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:20m;
ssl_session_timeout 4h;
}
|
SSL Certificate Chains
----------------------
- collection of
certificates inside a 1 certificate
- order is important,
nginx will fail if incorrect
- certificate chain
is used by `ssl_certificate` directive
- some certificate
authorities sign server certificates using an intermediate
certificate and in this case the CA provides
a bundle of chained certificates
that should be concatenated to the signed
server certificate
|
creating a
certificate chain
|
|
|
error message
received when
certificate chain
has wrong
ordering inside
|
SSL_CTX_use_PrivateKey_file("
... /www.example.com.key") failed
(SSL: error:0B080074:x509 certificate
routines:
X509_check_private_key:key values
mismatch)
|
|
checks to see if
your HTTP
server sends the
complete
certificate chain
to your
clients
NOTE: if a bundle
cert has
has not been added,
only certificate #0
will be shown
|
...
Certificate chain
0
s:/C=US/ST=Arizona/L=Scottsdale/1.3.6.1.4.1.311.60.2.1.3=US
/1.3.6.1.4.1.311.60.2.1.2=AZ/O=GoDaddy.com, Inc
/OU=MIS Department/CN=www.GoDaddy.com
/serialNumber=0796928-7/2.5.4.15=V1.0,
Clause 5.(b)
i:/C=US/ST=Arizona/L=Scottsdale/O=GoDaddy.com, Inc.
/OU=http://certificates.godaddy.com/repository
/CN=Go Daddy Secure Certification
Authority
/serialNumber=07969287
1
s:/C=US/ST=Arizona/L=Scottsdale/O=GoDaddy.com, Inc.
/OU=http://certificates.godaddy.com/repository
/CN=Go Daddy Secure Certification
Authority
/serialNumber=07969287
i:/C=US/O=The Go Daddy Group, Inc.
/OU=Go Daddy Class 2 Certification
Authority
2 s:/C=US/O=The Go Daddy Group, Inc.
/OU=Go Daddy Class 2 Certification
Authority
i:/L=ValiCert Validation
Network/O=ValiCert, Inc.
/OU=ValiCert Class 2 Policy Validation
Authority
/CN=http://www.valicert.com//emailAddress=info@valicert.com
|
Setting up an HTTP/HTTPS server
-------------------------------
- Nginx can be setup
to act both as a HTTP and HTTPS server
- config below can be
done on version 0.17.14 and above
|
setup
|
server {
listen 80;
listen 443 ssl;
...
}
|
Name-based HTTP Server
----------------------
- if 2 or more HTTPS
server is configured to listen on 1 IP address, the
server_name used by Nginx is the name on the
server certificate
- that happened
because SSL handshake occurs before the client browser sends an
HTTP request; thus, Nginx doesn't know the
server_name requsted by the client
so it uses the one in the server certificate
server
{
listen 443 ssl;
...
}
server
{
listen 443 ssl;
...
}
- the best way to
resolve that issue is to assign separate IPs
server
{
listen 192.168.1.1:443 ssl;
...
}
server
{
listen 192.168.1.2:443 ssl;
...
}
SSL Certificate with Several names
----------------------------------
Ways of sharing a
single IP:
1. certificate with
several names in the `SubjectAltName` certificate field
- the said field only have limited
characters
2. certificate with
wild card
- e.g: *.example.org
- that only matches one level higher
3. Using TLS Server
Name Indication (SNI, RFC 6066)
- allows a browser to pass requested server
name during SSL handshake
- has limited browser support
* Opera 8.0
* MSIE 7.0 (only on Windows Vista or
higher)
* Firefox 2.0 and other browsers using
Mozilla Platform rv:1.8.1
* Safari 3.2 .1 (Windows version
supports SNI on Vista or higher)
* Chrome (Windows version supports SNI
on Vista or higher, too)
- only domain names can be passed
- requirements:
* OpenSSL 0.9.8f and lower configured
with `--enable-tlsext`
* OpenSSL 0.9.8j (SNI enabled by
default)
|
It's better to
place a certificate
w/ several names
together with its
private key at the
`http` level so
that the rest of
the configuration
inherits the same
copy
|
ssl_certificate common.crt;
ssl_certificate_key
common.key;
server {
listen 443 ssl;
...
}
server {
listen 443 ssl;
...
}
|
|
Nginx w/ SNI
support
|
$ nginx -V
...
TLS SNI support
enabled
...
|
|
Nginx w/o SNI
support
|
NGINX was built
with SNI support, however, now it is linked
dynamically to an
OpenSSL library which has no tlsext support,
therefore SNI is
not available
|
|
Other SNI
compatibility notes
|
Compatibility Notes
- The SNI support
status has been shown by the “-V” switch since versions 0.8.21 and 0.7.62.
- The ssl parameter
of the listen directive has been supported since version 0.7.14. Prior to
version 0.8.21 it
could only be specified along with the
default parameter.
- SNI has been
supported since version 0.5.32.
- The shared SSL
session cache has been supported since version 0.5.6.
- From version
0.7.65, 0.8.19 and later the default SSL protocols are SSLv3, TLSv1, TLSv1.1,
and TLSv1.2 (if
supported by the OpenSSL library).
- From version
0.7.64, 0.8.18 and earlier the default SSL protocols are SSLv2, SSLv3, and
TLSv1.
- From version
1.0.5 and later the default SSL ciphers are HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5
- From version
0.7.65, 0.8.20 and later the default SSL ciphers are HIGH:!ADH:!MD5
- From version
0.8.19 the default SSL ciphers are ALL:!ADH:RC4+RSA:+HIGH:+MEDIUM
- From version
0.7.64, 0.8.18 and earlier the default SSL ciphers are
ALL:!ADH:RC4+RSA:+HIGH:+MEDIUM:+LOW:+SSLv2:+EXP
|
