ssl.pl -- Secure Socket Layer (SSL) library
An SSL server and client can be built with the (abstracted)
predicate calls from the table below. The tcp_
predicates
are provided by library(socket). The predicate ssl_context/3
defines properties of the SSL connection, while ssl_negotiate/5
establishes the SSL connection based on the wire streams created
by the TCP predicates and the context.
The SSL Server | The SSL Client |
ssl_context/3 | ssl_context/3 |
tcp_socket/1 | |
tcp_accept/3 | tcp_connect/3 |
tcp_open_socket/3 | stream_pair/3 |
ssl_negotiate/5 | ssl_negotiate/5 |
The library is abstracted to communication over streams, and is not
reliant on those streams being directly attached to sockets. The tcp_
calls here are simply the most common way to use the library. Other
two-way communication channels such as (named), pipes can just as
easily be used.
- ssl_context(+Role, -SSL, :Options) is det
- Create an SSL context. The context defines several properties
of the SSL connection such as involved keys, preferred
encryption, and passwords. After establishing a context, an SSL
connection can be negotiated using ssl_negotiate/5, turning two
arbitrary plain Prolog streams into encrypted streams. This
predicate processes the options below.
- host(+HostName)
- For the client, the host to which it connects. This option
should be specified when Role is
client
. Otherwise, certificate verification may fail when negotiating a secure connection. - certificate_file(+FileName)
- Specify where the certificate file can be found. This can be the
same as the
key_file(+FileName)
option. A server must have at least one certificate before clients can connect. A client must have a certificate only if the server demands the client to identify itself with a client certificate using thepeer_cert(true)
option. If a certificate is provided, it is necessary to also provide a matching private key via the key_file/1 option. To configure multiple certificates, use the option certificate_key_pairs/1 instead. Alternatively, use ssl_add_certificate_key/4 to add certificates and keys to an existing context. - key_file(+FileName)
- Specify where the private key that matches the certificate can
be found. If the key is encrypted with a password, this must
be supplied using the
password(+Text)
orpem_password_hook(:Goal)
option. - certificate_key_pairs(+Pairs)
- Alternative method for specifying certificates and keys. The argument is a list of pairs of the form Certificate-Key, where each component is a string or an atom that holds, respectively, the PEM-encoded certificate and key. To each certificate, further certificates of the chain can be appended. Multiple types of certificates can be present at the same time to enable different ciphers. Using multiple certificate types with completely independent certificate chains requires OpenSSL 1.0.2 or greater.
- password(+Text)
- Specify the password the private key is protected with (if any). If you do not want to store the password you can also specify an application defined handler to return the password (see next option). Text is either an atom or string. Using a string is preferred as strings are volatile and local resources.
- pem_password_hook(:Goal)
- In case a password is required to access the private key the
supplied predicate will be called to fetch it. The hook is
called as
call(Goal, +SSL, -Password)
and typically unifies Password with a string containing the password. - require_crl(+Boolean)
- If true (default is false), then all certificates will be
considered invalid unless they can be verified as not being
revoked. You can do this explicity by passing a list of CRL
filenames via the crl/1 option, or by doing it yourself in
the cert_verify_hook. If you specify
require_crl(true)
and provide neither of these options, verification will necessarily fail - crl(+ListOfFileNames)
- Provide a list of filenames of PEM-encoded CRLs that will be
given to the context to attempt to establish that a chain of
certificates is not revoked. You must also set
require_crl(true)
if you want CRLs to actually be checked by OpenSSL. - cacert_file(+FileName)
- Specify a file containing certificate keys of trusted
certificates. The peer is trusted if its certificate is
signed (ultimately) by one of the provided certificates. Using
the FileName
system(root_certificates)
uses a list of trusted root certificates as provided by the OS. See system_root_certificates/1 for details.Additional verification of the peer certificate as well as accepting certificates that are not trusted by the given set can be realised using the hook cert_verify_hook(:Goal).
- cert_verify_hook(:Goal)
- The predicate ssl_negotiate/5 calls Goal as follows:
call(Goal, +SSL, +ProblemCertificate, +AllCertificates, +FirstCertificate, +Error)
In case the certificate was verified by one of the provided certifications from the
cacert_file
option, Error is unified with the atomverified
. Otherwise it contains the error string passed from OpenSSL. Access will be granted iff the predicate succeeds. See load_certificate/2 for a description of the certificate terms. See cert_accept_any/5 for a dummy implementation that accepts any certificate. - cipher_list(+Atom)
- Specify a cipher preference list (one or more cipher strings separated by colons, commas or spaces).
- ecdh_curve(+Atom)
- Specify a curve for ECDHE ciphers. If this option is not
specified, the OpenSSL default parameters are used. With
OpenSSL prior to 1.1.0,
prime256v1
is used by default. - peer_cert(+Boolean)
- Trigger the request of our peer's certificate while establishing the SSL layer. This option is automatically turned on in a client SSL socket. It can be used in a server to ask the client to identify itself using an SSL certificate.
- close_parent(+Boolean)
- If
true
, close the raw streams if the SSL streams are closed. Default isfalse
. - close_notify(+Boolean)
- If
true
(default isfalse
), the server sends TLSclose_notify
when closing the connection. In addition, this mitigates truncation attacks for both client and server role: If EOF is encountered without having received a TLS shutdown, an exception is raised. Well-designed protocols are self-terminating, and this attack is therefore very rarely a concern. - min_protocol_version(+Atom)
- Set the minimum protocol version that can be negotiated.
Atom is one of
sslv3
,tlsv1
,tlsv1_1
andtlsv1_2
. This option is available with OpenSSL 1.1.0 and later, and should be used instead ofdisable_ssl_methods/1
. - max_protocol_version(+Atom)
- Set the maximum protocol version that can be negotiated.
Atom is one of
sslv3
,tlsv1
,tlsv1_1
andtlsv1_2
. This option is available with OpenSSL 1.1.0 and later, and should be used instead ofdisable_ssl_methods/1
. - disable_ssl_methods(+List)
- A list of methods to disable. Unsupported methods will be
ignored. Methods include
sslv2
,sslv3
,sslv23
,tlsv1
,tlsv1_1
andtlsv1_2
. This option is deprecated starting with OpenSSL 1.1.0. Use min_protocol_version/1 and max_protocol_version/1 instead. - ssl_method(+Method)
- Specify the explicit Method to use when negotiating. For
allowed values, see the list for
disable_ssl_methods
above. Using this option is discouraged. When using OpenSSL 1.1.0 or later, this option is ignored, and a version-flexible method is used to negotiate the connection. Using version-specific methods is deprecated in recent OpenSSL versions, and this option will become obsolete and ignored in the future. - sni_hook(:Goal)
- This option provides Server Name Indication (SNI) for SSL
servers. This means that depending on the host to which a
client connects, different options (certificates etc.) can
be used for the server. This TLS extension allows you to host
different domains using the same IP address and physical
machine. When a TLS connection is negotiated with a client
that has provided a host name via SNI, the hook is called as
follows:
call(Goal, +SSL0, +HostName, -SSL)
Given the current context SSL0, and the host name of the client request, the predicate computes SSL which is used as the context for negotiating the connection. The first solution is used. If the predicate fails, the default options are used, which are those of the encompassing ssl_context/3 call. In that case, if no default certificate and key are specified, the client connection is rejected.
- ssl_add_certificate_key(+SSL0, +Certificate, +Key, -SSL)
- Add an additional certificate/key pair to SSL0, yielding SSL.
Certificate and Key are either strings or atoms that hold the
PEM-encoded certificate plus certificate chain and private key,
respectively. Using strings is preferred for security reasons.
This predicate allows dual-stack RSA and ECDSA servers (for example), and is an alternative for using the
certificate_key_pairs/1
option. As of OpenSSL 1.0.2, multiple certificate types with completely independent certificate chains are supported. If a certificate of the same type is added repeatedly to a context, the result is undefined. Currently, up to 12 additional certificates of different types are admissible. - ssl_set_options(+SSL0, -SSL, +Options)
- SSL is the same as SSL0, except for the options specified in Options. The following options are supported: close_notify/1, close_parent/1, host/1, peer_cert/1, ecdh_curve/1, min_protocol_version/1, max_protocol_version/1, disable_ssl_methods/1, sni_hook/1, cert_verify_hook/1. See ssl_context/3 for more information about these options. This predicate allows you to tweak existing SSL contexts, which can be useful in hooks when creating servers with the HTTP infrastructure.
- ssl_negotiate(+SSL, +PlainRead, +PlainWrite, -SSLRead, -SSLWrite) is det
- Once a connection is established and a read/write stream pair is
available, (PlainRead and PlainWrite), this predicate can be
called to negotiate an SSL session over the streams. If the
negotiation is successful, SSLRead and SSLWrite are returned.
After a successful handshake and finishing the communication the user must close SSLRead and SSLWrite, for example using
call_cleanup(close(SSLWrite), close(SSLRead))
. If the SSL context (created with ssl_context/3 has the optionclose_parent(true)
(defaultfalse
), closing SSLRead and SSLWrite also closes the original PlainRead and PlainWrite streams. Otherwise these must be closed explicitly by the user. - ssl_peer_certificate(+Stream, -Certificate) is semidet
- True if the peer certificate is provided (this is always the
case for a client connection) and Certificate unifies with the
peer certificate. The example below uses this to obtain the
Common Name of the peer after establishing an https client
connection:
http_open(HTTPS_url, In, []), ssl_peer_certificate(In, Cert), memberchk(subject(Subject), Cert), memberchk('CN' = CommonName), Subject)
- ssl_peer_certificate_chain(+Stream, -Certificates) is det
- Certificates is the certificate chain provided by the peer, represented as a list of certificates.
- ssl_session(+Stream, -Session) is det
- Retrieves (debugging) properties from the SSL context associated
with Stream. If Stream is not an SSL stream, the predicate
raises a domain error. Session is a list of properties,
containing the members described below. Except for Version,
all information are byte arrays that are represented as Prolog
strings holding characters in the range 0..255.
- ssl_version(Version)
- The negotiated version of the session as an integer.
- cipher(Cipher)
- The negotiated cipher for this connection.
- session_key(Key)
- The key material used in SSLv2 connections (if present).
- master_key(Key)
- The key material comprising the master secret. This is generated from the server_random, client_random and pre-master key.
- client_random(Random)
- The random data selected by the client during handshaking.
- server_random(Random)
- The random data selected by the server during handshaking.
- session_id(SessionId)
- The SSLv3 session ID. Note that if ECDHE is being used (which is the default for newer versions of OpenSSL), this data will not actually be sent to the server.
- load_certificate(+Stream, -Certificate) is det
- Loads a certificate from a PEM- or DER-encoded stream, returning
a term which will unify with the same certificate if presented
in cert_verify_hook. A certificate is a list containing the
following terms: issuer_name/1, hash/1, signature/1,
signature_algorithm/1, version/1, notbefore/1, notafter/1,
serial/1, subject/1 and key/1. subject/1 and issuer_name/1 are
both lists of =/2 terms representing the name. With OpenSSL
1.0.2 and greater, to_be_signed/1 is also available, yielding
the hexadecimal representation of the TBS (to-be-signed) portion
of the certificate.
Note that the OpenSSL
CA.pl
utility creates certificates that have a human readable textual representation in front of the PEM representation. You can use the following to skip to the certificate if you know it is a PEM certificate:skip_to_pem_cert(In) :- repeat, ( peek_char(In, '-') -> ! ; skip(In, 0'\n), at_end_of_stream(In), ! ).
- load_crl(+Stream, -CRL) is det
- Loads a CRL from a PEM- or DER-encoded stream, returning a term
containing terms hash/1, signature/1, issuer_name/1 and
revocations/1, which is a list of revoked/2 terms. Each
revoked/2 term is of the form
revoked(+Serial, DateOfRevocation)
- system_root_certificates(-List) is det
- List is a list of trusted root certificates as provided by the
OS. This is the list used by ssl_context/3 when using the option
system(root_certificates)
. The list is obtained using an OS specific process. The current implementation is as follows:- On Windows, CertOpenSystemStore() is used to import
the
"ROOT"
certificates from the OS. - On MacOSX, the trusted keys are loaded from the SystemRootCertificates key chain. The Apple API for this requires the SSL interface to be compiled with an XCode compiler, i.e., not with native gcc.
- Otherwise, certificates are loaded from a file defined
by the Prolog flag
system_cacert_filename
. The initial value of this flag is operating system dependent. For security reasons, the flag can only be set prior to using the SSL library. For example::- use_module(library(ssl)). :- set_prolog_flag(system_cacert_filename, '/home/jan/ssl/ca-bundle.crt').
- On Windows, CertOpenSystemStore() is used to import
the
- load_private_key(+Stream, +Password, -PrivateKey) is det
- Load a private key PrivateKey from the given stream Stream,
using Password to decrypt the key if it is encrypted. Note that
the password is currently only supported for PEM files.
DER-encoded keys which are password protected will not load. The
key must be an RSA or EC key. DH and DSA keys are not supported,
and PrivateKey will be bound to an atom (dh_key or dsa_key) if
you try and load such a key. Otherwise PrivateKey will be
unified with
private_key(KeyTerm)
where KeyTerm is an rsa/8 term representing an RSA key, or ec/3 for EC keys. - load_public_key(+Stream, -PublicKey) is det
- Load a public key PublicKey from the given stream Stream.
Supports loading both DER- and PEM-encoded keys. The key must be
an RSA or EC key. DH and DSA keys are not supported, and
PublicKey will be bound to an atom (dh_key or dsa_key) if you
try and load such a key. Otherwise PublicKey will be unified
with
public_key(KeyTerm)
where KeyTerm is an rsa/8 term representing an RSA key, or ec/3 for EC keys. - cert_accept_any(+SSL, +ProblemCertificate, +AllCertificates, +FirstCertificate, +Error) is det
- Implementation for the hook `cert_verify_hook(:Hook)` that
accepts any certificate. This is intended for http_open/3 if
no certificate verification is desired as illustrated below.
http_open('https:/...', In, [ cert_verify_hook(cert_accept_any) ])
- ssl_secure_ciphers(-Ciphers:atom) is det
- Secure ciphers must guarantee forward secrecy, and must mitigate all
known critical attacks. As of 2017, using the following ciphers
allows you to obtain grade A on https://www.ssllabs.com. For A+, you
must also enable HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) by sending a
suitable header field in replies.
Note that obsolete ciphers must be disabled to reliably prevent protocol downgrade attacks.
The Ciphers list is read from the setting
ssl:secure_ciphers
and can be controlled using set_setting/2 and other predicates from library(settings).BEWARE: This list must be changed when attacks on these ciphers become known! Keep an eye on this setting and adapt it as necessary in the future.