[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Are there any docs for setting this up?
Not as such - I cooked the site up as a one-off, with the feeling that
much of it came under the dirty hack classification (particularly as
almost every mod-ssl document contains wording to the effect of Don't
ever ever ever under any circumstances try to use NBVHs with mod-ssl)
There's nothing particularly innovative or devious here - and I'm in the
rare position of working with a smallish closed user group whose members
are willing and competent to do some basic browser certificate management.
But I suppose if people feel this set-up is legitimate, useful and
non-trivial I ought to make time to write up a quick How-to and/or an
expurgated config file. Is there a suitable Apache cookbook where such
recipes are collected?
Regards,
James.
thanks
Robert
- Original Message -
From: James Collier [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, January 13, 2003 12:29 PM
Subject: Re: Confession: I use NBVHs with SSL (was Re: 2 VirtualHosts with 2 Certificates)
Many thanks Owen - I'll sleep more easily now ;)
Boyle Owen wrote:
-Original Message-
From: James Collier [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
At the moment, the handshake take place using the first matching vhost
on the basis of IP+Port, but evidently Apache then scans the decrypted
host header and assigns the correct NBVH.
Exactly. The SSL transaction is handled by mod_ssl. The apache core is only used initially to deliver a certificate to the SSL Engine. As you rightly say, given only an IP address and port number, it simply responds with the first cert it finds in a matching VH. Having obtained a cert, mod_ssl establishes the SSL channel with the browser - thereafter, the requests are decrypted and passed en clair to the apache core. So now apache can apply its NBVH algorithm happily.
This is using 1.3.x; I haven't tested 2.x yet.
It will be the same. This is a feature of the HTTPS layer and is unaffected by what happens in the apache core, which is under HTTPS.
My fear is that future apache+modssl code may lock-in the first NBVH
that matches on the basis of IP+Port, which would break my scheme.
Not likely. Each request is allowed to contain its own Host header. So there is no reason why the server should override it. In any case, there is no mechanism for the server to remember that subsequent requests from a particular client were originally served from a certain VH. HTTPS is an additional onion-layer which entirely encapsulates HTTP so there should be no spillover from one to the other.
Rgds,
Owen Boyle
Regards,
James.
PS For those of you who were wondering, we use a private CA to
issue the
wildcard server cert. As someone has already noted, Thawte advertise
them as well.
Boyle Owen wrote:
-Original Message-
From: James Collier [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
I realise I am on thin ice as it would be a reasonable
optimisation to assign the final virtual host at an earlier
stage than is currently the case with SSL.
^^^
I meant apache+modssl
I wouldn't worry too much. Currently, in an SSL transaction, *all*
information is regarded as requiring encryption - including the Host
header in the original request. So the SSL session has to be
established
before any traffic takes place. Anything different (e.g. putting the
host header in the SSL layer) would be a major revision of
the protocol.
One of two things will happen first:
- IPv6 will take off, creating so many IP addresses that NBVH will be
unnecessary and we will revert to one site, one IP.
- A new SSL-like protocol will appear which promotes the site name to
the SSL layer thus enabling NBVH.
Either way, you'll need substantially to upgrade and reconfigure your
server so you'll be well aware of the changes.
Rgds,
Owen Boyle
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