RECENT BLOG NEWS

Here`s the third part in a four part series giving a more detailed report on some of the new features present in the recent wolfSSL release.

• Runtime hooks for logging.  The wolfSSL embedded SSL library has had the ability to do logging when debug is enabled for some time.  Now, logging callback functions can be registered at runtime to provide some more flexibility with how logging is done.  The logging callback can be registered with:

int wolfSSL_SetLoggingCb(wolfSSL_Logging_cb log_function);

typedef void (*wolfSSL_Logging_cb)(const int logLevel,
                                 const char *const logMessage);

The log levels can be found in logging.h and the implementation is in logging.c.  By default, wolfSSL logs to stderr with fprintf.

• More informative error codes.  With the new logging facility an effort was made to change generic errors (-1) to more informative ones.  This should aid in the debugging of SSL problems in general and particularly during the SSL handshake.

• More informative logging messages.  As with the above feature, an effort was made to have more descriptive logging messages both in error cases and for informational output.  These should aid debugging and tracking as well.

• EDH on server side.  A wolfSSL server can now do Ephemeral Diffie-Hellman.  No build changes are needed to add this feature.  Though an application will have to register the ephemeral group parameters on the server side to enable the EDH cipher suites.  A new API can be used to do this:

int wolfSSL_SetTmpDH(SSL* ssl, unsigned char* p,int pSz,unsigned char* g,int gSz);

The example server and echoserver use this function from SetDH().

• More robust server downgrade.  Both wolfSSL clients and servers now have robust version downgrade capability.  If a specific version method is used on either side then only that version will be negotiated or an error will be returned.  A client that uses TLSv1 and tries to connect to a SSLv3 only server will fail, likewise connecting to a TLSv1.1 will fail as well.  On the other hand, a client that uses SSLv23 (use the highest version supported and downgrade to SSLv3 if needed) will connect to a server running SSLv3 – TLSv1.2.  The only version it can`t connect to is SSLv2 which has been insecure for years.  Similarly, a server using SSLv23 can handle clients from SSLv3 – TLSv1.2.  A wolfSSL server can`t accept a connection from SSLv2 because no security is provided.

Please email us at info@yassl.com or support@yassl.com with any questions regarding the above feature additions, the wolfSSL embedded SSL library, or embedded SSL in general.

We wanted to let our followers know that we`re in the process of porting wolfSSL to FreeRTOS/OpenRTOS. FreeRTOS is a real-time operating system for embedded devices which is designed to be small and simple. Currently, it officially supports 27 architectures and is downloaded over 77 thousand times every year.

Like wolfSSL, FreeRTOS is portable, open source and royalty free. OpenRTOS has an identical code base to FreeRTOS except it offers a commercial license for those projects which would rather not abide by the terms of the GPL.

For a full list of features in FreeRTOS/OpenRTOS, and to learn more about the project in general, visit the FreeRTOS website at http://www.freertos.org/.

If you would like to use wolfSSL with FreeRTOS, or have any questions about our port, please let us know at info@yassl.com.

Thanks!

We want to announce that the wolfSSL embedded SSL library has been ported to the popular KLone Web Application Framework and is now available as a build option in KLone 2.4.0!

KLone is a multi-platform web application development framework which is targeted specifically for embedded systems and appliances.  It not only includes a full-featured web server, but also an SDK for creating websites with both static and dynamic content.  KLone combines the web server application (HTTP, HTTPS) together with content and configuration into one single executable file.  Because it`s optimized to run in embedded environments, it maintains a small application footprint and offers fast execution speeds.

We think that KLone and wolfSSL fit together very well.  Both are optimized for embedded environments, are dual licensed under the GPLv2 and commercial licensing, are royalty free, and have awesome development teams behind them.  Initial tests with KLone and wolfSSL resulted in a 20X disk/flash footprint decrease and a 3X performance gain over the comparable OpenSSL+libcrypto combo.

To build KLone with wolfSSL, follow the instructions provided with the KLone download located in the README.wolfSSL file, or download the KLone “Crypto” example application and follow the included instructions.  More information can be found at the following links:

wolfSSL: https://www.wolfssl.com/products/wolfssl/
KLone: http://www.koanlogic.com/klone/
KLone Crypto Examples: http://www.koanlogic.com/klone/tut.html

Here`s the second part in a four part series giving a more detailed report of some of the new features present in the recent wolfSSL release.

• UID parsing for x509.  Certificates that contain UIDs now have the UID saved for retrieval by wolfSSL.  No additional function calls are needed as the UID is contained in the subject or issuer name line and processed like email as part of the Common Name (CN).  The UID is prefixed with /UID as the identifier.

• SHA-256 Certificate Signatures.  Some certificates are showing up in the wild with SHA-256 certificates though it`s still very unusual.  To stay ahead of the curve, wolfSSL now supports certificate and signature verification with SHA-256.  No action is needed by the user as this is all done internally.

• Client and server can send certificate chains.  Previously, wolfSSL would only send the actual or “bottom” certificate of a chain and rely on the other side to have the rest of the chain available for processing.  Now, the user can load all or part of a certificate chain using the function call:

int SSL_CTX_use_certificate_chain_file(SSL_CTX *ctx, const char *file);

file must be in PEM format and must be sorted starting with the subject`s certificate (the actual client or server cert), followed by any intermediate certificates and ending (optionally) at the root “top” CA.  The example server now uses this functionality.

• CA loading can now parse multiple certificates per file.  wolfSSL is able to load several CAs for verification purposes from one file using the function call:

int SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations(SSL_CTX *ctx, const char *CAfile, const char *CApath);

by passing in a CAfile in PEM format with as many certs as possible.  This is useful when a client needs to load several root CAs at startup and makes initialization easier.  It also makes it easier to port into tools that expect to be able to use a single file for CAs.

• Dynamic memory runtime hooks.  wolfSSL has had a memory abstraction layer for quite some time, allowing the user to take control of dynamic memory handling.  This new feature allows the ability to register the memory override functions at runtime instead of compile time.  cyassl_memory.h is the header for this functionality and the user can call:

int wolfSSL_SetAllocators(wolfSSL_Malloc_cb  malloc_function,
                       wolfSSL_Free_cb    free_function,
                       wolfSSL_Realloc_cb realloc_function);

to setup the memory functions.  Please see the header for the callback prototypes and cyassl_memory.c for the implementation. 

Please email us at info@yassl.com or support@yassl.com with any questions regarding the above feature additions, or wolfSSL in general.

Hi!  In the last 9 months, we’ve made great strides in improving our documentation.  However, we recognize that more work needs to be done.  We primarily want to make it easy for someone who is new to SSL to get started and be productive and comfortable with the technology.

One of the documents that we came out with is a general purpose SSL tutorial targeted to programmers that are getting started with CyaSSL.

Our goal is to continue to make incremental improvement in the documentation, so please give us your feedback!  Let us know where we are lacking and what needs to be better explained.  We’ll make the changes, just send us an email with your thoughts on how we can improve to info@yassl.com.

Here`s a more detailed report on some of the new features that are in the recent wolfSSL 2.0 release. wolfSSL 2.0 RC1 is available for download from our Downloads page.

* SHA-256 cipher suites are now supported. The new suites include:

TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256
TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256

No action is needed to include these suites, they`re in by default.

* Root certificate verification has been added. wolfSSL used to require all certificates in the chain to be trusted in order to do a verification. Now, only the top or root certificate of the chain is required to be loaded as a trusted certificate in order to properly verify the chain.

* PKCS #8 private key encryption. wolfSSL now support PKCS #8 private encrypted keys. Supported formats include PKCS #5 version 1 – version 2 and PKCS #12. Types of encryption available include DES, 3DES, RC4, and AES.

* Serial number retrieval for x509. A serial number of any length can now be extracted with wolfSSL using the extension function:

int wolfSSL_X509_get_serial_number(X509* x509, byte* buffer, int* inOutSz)

buffer will be written to with at most *inOutSz bytes on input. After the call, if successful (return of 0), *inOutSz will hold the actual number of bytes written to buffer. A full example is included cyassl_test.h.

* PBKDF2 and PKCS #12 PBKDF. wolfSSL used to only support password based key derivation function 1. Now it additionally support version 2 and the PBKDF version from PKCS #12. Use is the same as the original and the function prototypes look like:

int PBKDF2(byte* output, const byte* passwd, int pLen, const byte* salt, int sLen, int iterations, int kLen, int hashType);

int PKCS12_PBKDF(byte* output, const byte* passwd, int pLen, const byte* salt, int sLen, int iterations, int kLen, int hashType, int purpose);

output contains the derived key, passwd holds the user password of length pLen, salt holds the salt input of length sLen, iterations is the number of iterations to perform, kLen is the desired derived key length, and hashType is the hash to use which can be MD5, SHA1, or SHA2.

A full example is included in ctaocrypt/src/test.c. Please email us at info@yassl.com or support@yassl.com with any questions regarding the above feature additions, or wolfSSL in general.

wolfSSL 2.0.0 Release Candidate 1 is now available for download on our website.  The release is chunk full of new features including:

– SHA-256 cipher suites
– Root Certificate Verification (instead of needing all certs in the chain)
– PKCS #8 private key encryption (supports PKCS #5 v1-v2 and PKCS #12)
– Serial number retrieval for x509
– PBKDF2 and PKCS #12 PBKDF
– UID parsing for x509
– SHA-256 certificate signatures
– Client and server can send chains (SSL_CTX_use_certificate_chain_file)
– CA loading can now parse multiple certificates per file
– Dynamic memory runtime hooks
– Runtime hooks for logging
– EDH on server side
– More informative error codes
– More informative logging messages
– Version downgrade more robust (use SSL_v23*)
– Shared build only by default through ./configure
– Compiler visibility is now used, internal functions not polluting namespace
– Single Makefile, no recursion, for faster and simpler building
– Turn on all warnings possible build option, warning fixes

Stay tuned for a few posts this week giving more details about all the new features.

Because of all the new features and the multiple OS, compiler, feature-set options that wolfSSL allows, there may be some configuration fixes needed. Please send any comments or questions to support@yassl.com.

Have you ever been curious about what performance impact SSL has when used with MySQL? We recently benchmarked SSL vs non-SSL performance in MySQL using yaSSL. yaSSL is bundled with source distributions of MySQL by default. We compared both the footprint size as well as average query times for SELECT queries (measured with the sysbench tool).

Our findings were part of a presentation on MySQL security practices along with an introduction to SSL and TLS. It was titled “Securing MySQL with a Focus on SSL“, and was recently presented at the 2011 O`Reilly MySQL Conference & Expo. If you missed our presentation, or if you would like to download the slides as a reference, you can find them in PDF format on our Media Page.

Our benchmark machine was an Apple Macbook Pro, with the following specs:

Apple Macbook Pro
Intel Core 2 Duo
2.33 GHz
4 MB L2 Cache, 2GB Memory, 667 MHz Bus Speed

FOOTPRINT SIZE

The difference in footprint size between an installation of MySQL with SSL support versus one without SSL is very small (about 5%). There are two directories containing size differences: the `lib` and `bin` directories, with size comparisons as shown in Figure 1, below.

Figure 1
Footprint size comparison of MySQL with SSL (Green) and MySQL without SSL (Red). This was calculated by running the “du” command inside the MySQL installation directory after a new install.

AVERAGE SELECT QUERY TIMES
Looking at average query times, Figure 2 shows a breakdown of average query time (ms) comparisons for varying number of concurrent client connections. Looking at one sample specifically, we can see that for a client concurrency of eight, there is a 16.9% increase in the average query time when connections are using SSL.

Figure 2
Average query times (in ms) for varying number of concurrent client connections. Results were obtained by using the sysbench tool on a new MySQL installation.

CONCLUSION
These tests were run on a laptop using the sysbench tool. Speeds on enterprise platforms will vary. If you have any questions about our findings or methodology for testing, please email us directly at info@yassl.com.

As you may know, we recently gave a presentation titled “Securing MySQL with a Focus on SSL” at the 2011 O`Reilly MySQL Conference & Expo. We had a great time, met a bunch of awesome people, and learned a lot. Now that the conference is over, we`ve posted our slides to our Media page as a resource, here.

Our presentation covers the basics of securing a new MySQL installation, goes over an introduction of how SSL and TLS work, and touches on data encryption as well. A general outline is below:

MySQL Security
– Common Attacks & Vulnerabilities
– Good Security Practices for MySQL

SSL/TLS
– Overview of SSL and TLS
– Configuring and Building MySQL with SSL
– MySQL SSL Command Options
– SSL Certificate Creation
– Performance Comparison
 
Additional Security Concerns
– Data Storage and Encryption

If you find any errors in our presentation, or see things that you think should be added, please let us know. Stay tuned for a summary of our SSL performance results.

Thanks,
Team yaSSL

yaSSL has made substantial progress in Q1 of 2011, including improvements and expansions in the areas of standards support, new ciphers, code repositories, and new community activity. We like to keep our users up to date about our progress. An overview of yaSSL accomplishments and activities for Q1 can be seen below:

wolfSSL
– SHA-256 Cipher Suites
– PKCS8 Private Key Encryption Support
– Password-based key derivation function 2
– Better TLS 1.2 support

yaSSL Embedded Web Server
– Release 0.2. Added increased documentation, bug fixes, and examples.

Porting
– Mbed Release. wolfSSL is now ported to mBed and available for their cloud compiler.
– CURL port. wolfSSL can now be built with CURL (as a build option).
– memcached patch. wolfSSL now provides SSL security for memcache.
– reSIPprocate port
– Haiku OS. wolfSSL now works with the Haiku Operating System.

Code & Community
– Migrated wolfSSL code to GitHub
– Introduced the yaSSL Support Forums
– Added BMX6 to the wolfSSL Community
– Expanded and Grew our Partnership with Intel
– Revived and updated our Freshmeat Accounts

Conference & Expo`s
– FOSDEM
– RSA Conference
– O`Reilly MySQL Conference & Expo
(Presentation: Securing MySQL with a Focus on SSL)

If you have questions about items in the above list, or would like more information on yaSSL products, please contact directly at info@yassl.com, or through our support forums (http://wolfssl.com/forums).

Team yaSSL