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91 lines
3.5 KiB
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91 lines
3.5 KiB
Plaintext
OpenSSL - Frequently Asked Questions
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* Where is the documentation?
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* How can I contact the OpenSSL developers?
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* Do I need patent licenses to use OpenSSL?
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* Is OpenSSL thread-safe?
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* Why do I get a "PRNG not seeded" error message?
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* Where is the documentation?
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OpenSSL is a library that provides cryptographic functionality to
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applications such as secure web servers. Be sure to read the
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documentation of the application you want to use. The INSTALL file
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explains how to install this library.
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OpenSSL includes a command line utility that can be used to perform a
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variety of cryptographic functions. It is described in the openssl(1)
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manpage. Documentation for developers is currently being written. A
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few manual pages already are available; overviews over libcrypto and
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libssl are given in the crypto(3) and ssl(3) manpages.
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The OpenSSL manpages are installed in /usr/local/ssl/man/ (or a
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different directory if you specified one as described in INSTALL).
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In addition, you can read the most current versions at
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<URL: http://www.openssl.org/docs/>.
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For information on parts of libcrypto that are not yet documented, you
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might want to read Ariel Glenn's documentation on SSLeay 0.9, OpenSSL's
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predecessor, at <URL: http://www.columbia.edu/~ariel/ssleay/>. Much
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of this still applies to OpenSSL.
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The original SSLeay documentation is included in OpenSSL as
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doc/ssleay.txt. It may be useful when none of the other ressources
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help, but please note that it reflects the obsolete version SSLeay
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0.6.6.
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* How can I contact the OpenSSL developers?
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The README file describes how to submit bug reports and patches to
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OpenSSL. Information on the OpenSSL mailing lists is available from
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<URL: http://www.openssl.org>.
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* Do I need patent licenses to use OpenSSL?
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The patents section of the README file lists patents that may apply to
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you if you want to use OpenSSL. For information on intellectual
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property rights, please consult a lawyer. The OpenSSL team does not
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offer legal advice.
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You can configure OpenSSL so as not to use RC5 and IDEA by using
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./config no-rc5 no-idea
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Until the RSA patent expires, U.S. users may want to use
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./config no-rc5 no-idea no-rsa
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Please note that you will *not* be able to communicate with most of
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the popular web browsers without RSA support.
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* Is OpenSSL thread-safe?
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Yes. On Windows and many Unix systems, OpenSSL automatically uses the
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multi-threaded versions of the standard libraries. If your platform
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is not one of these, consult the INSTALL file.
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Multi-threaded applications must provide two callback functions to
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OpenSSL. This will be described in the threads(3) manpage. [That
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page has not been written yet. Please read the "threads.doc" section
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of doc/ssleay.txt instead.]
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* Why do I get a "PRNG not seeded" error message?
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Cryptographic software needs a source of unpredictable data to work
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correctly. Many open source operating systems provide a "randomness
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device" that serves this purpose. On other systems, applications have
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to call the RAND_add() or RAND_seed() function with appropriate data
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before generating keys or performing public key encryption.
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Some broken applications do not do this. As of version 0.9.5, the
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OpenSSL functions that need randomness report an error if the random
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number generator has not been seeded with at least 128 bits of
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randomness. If this error occurs, please contact the author of the
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application you are using. It is likely that it never worked
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correctly. OpenSSL 0.9.5 makes the error visible by refusing to
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perform potentially insecure encryption.
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