Good Day, My name is Nick Jenkins. I am setting up an Apache + mod_ssl + OpenSSL (AMO, heretofore) configuration for internal testing purposes here at GE. In general, I think this solution is great, and that although it is a shame that SSL was necessarily 'chucked' from Apache due to the NSA, that this more modular solution is better, anyway. Thanks to those of you who maintain this.
Now then, I am trying to get AMO configured to provide only legal, non-patented, and Secure SSL. Thus, I have configured the ./config command as follows: sh config --openssldir=/usr/local/openssl \ no-threads shared no-idea no-rc2 no-rc4 no-rc5 \ no-md4 no-md5 -DSSL_FORBID_ENULL -DSSL_ALLOW_ADH The reason that I am excluding MD5 is that according to RSA, it is based upon MD4, that has been completely cracked, and that some follow-on work was performed on MD5 that might make it (somewhat) insecure, as well. (This is, of course, my paraphrase of what they said.) Whether MD5 is, in fact, insecure is not important. What IS important, for the sake of this discussion is that I don't trust it, and want it disabled. So, I specified the "no-md5" option, and after lots of compiling, the openSSL make failed at s3_srvr.c. When I investigated, I found that in ssl/ssl.h, it says: #if (defined(NO_RSA) || defined(NO_MD5)) && !defined(NO_SSL2) #define NO_SSL2 #endif So, I naturally am not surprised that I get no SSL2 by disabling MD5. What did surprise me, though, is that s3_srvr.c requires "#include <openssl/md5.h>", which has in it: #ifdef NO_MD5 #error MD5 is disabled. #endif Since I haven't bothered to read the SSL spec (big surprise, eh?), I would have thought it possible to build an SSL server that only used SHA1 and/or MDC2, but not necessarily MD5. However, it would appear that at least in the current revision of the software, MD5 is a pre-requisite for building SSL2 or SSL3 or TLS1 support. Since MD5 seems to be required, I have enabled it in my current compile. I just wanted to point this out, in case this had slipped through the cracks. Also, this begs the question, "why have a 'NO_MD5' compilation option if it is required for compilation?" I have not joined this mailing list, as I really don't anticipate posting another note here, and I already get enough mail, so if you have any responses, please copy me at: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thanks, -NICK ______________________________________________________________________ OpenSSL Project http://www.openssl.org User Support Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Automated List Manager [EMAIL PROTECTED]
