NAME¶
Crypt::SSLeay - OpenSSL support for LWP
SYNOPSIS¶
lwp-request https://www.example.com
use LWP::UserAgent;
my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
my $response = $ua->get('https://www.example.com/');
print $response->content, "\n";
DESCRIPTION¶
This Perl module provides support for the HTTPS protocol under LWP, to allow an
"LWP::UserAgent" object to perform GET, HEAD and POST requests.
Please see LWP for more information on POST requests.
The "Crypt::SSLeay" package provides "Net::SSL", which is
loaded by "LWP::Protocol::https" for https requests and provides the
necessary SSL glue.
This distribution also makes following deprecated modules available:
Crypt::SSLeay::CTX
Crypt::SSLeay::Conn
Crypt::SSLeay::X509
Work on Crypt::SSLeay has been continued only to provide https support for the
LWP (libwww-perl) libraries.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES¶
The following environment variables change the way "Crypt::SSLeay" and
"Net::SSL" behave.
# proxy support
$ENV{HTTPS_PROXY} = 'http://proxy_hostname_or_ip:port';
# proxy_basic_auth
$ENV{HTTPS_PROXY_USERNAME} = 'username';
$ENV{HTTPS_PROXY_PASSWORD} = 'password';
# debugging (SSL diagnostics)
$ENV{HTTPS_DEBUG} = 1;
# default ssl version
$ENV{HTTPS_VERSION} = '3';
# client certificate support
$ENV{HTTPS_CERT_FILE} = 'certs/notacacert.pem';
$ENV{HTTPS_KEY_FILE} = 'certs/notacakeynopass.pem';
# CA cert peer verification
$ENV{HTTPS_CA_FILE} = 'certs/ca-bundle.crt';
$ENV{HTTPS_CA_DIR} = 'certs/';
# Client PKCS12 cert support
$ENV{HTTPS_PKCS12_FILE} = 'certs/pkcs12.pkcs12';
$ENV{HTTPS_PKCS12_PASSWORD} = 'PKCS12_PASSWORD';
INSTALL¶
OpenSSL¶
You must have OpenSSL or SSLeay installed before compiling this module. You can
get the latest OpenSSL package from <
http://www.openssl.org/>.
On Debian systems, you will need to install the "libssl-dev" package,
at least for the duration of the build (it may be removed afterwards).
Other package-based systems may require something similar. The key is that
"Crypt::SSLeay" makes calls to the OpenSSL library, and how to do so
is specified in the C header files that come with the library. Some systems
break out the header files into a separate package from that of the libraries.
Once the program has been built, you don't need the headers any more.
When installing openssl make sure your config looks like:
./config --openssldir=/usr/local/openssl
or
./config --openssldir=/usr/local/ssl
If you are planning on upgrading the default OpenSSL libraries on a system like
RedHat, (not recommended), then try something like:
./config --openssldir=/usr --shared
The "--shared" option to config will set up building the .so shared
libraries which is important for such systems. This is followed by:
make
make test
make install
This way "Crypt::SSLeay" will pick up the includes and libraries
automatically. If your includes end up going into a separate directory like
/usr/local/include, then you may need to symlink
/usr/local/openssl/include to
/usr/local/include
Crypt::SSLeay¶
The latest Crypt::SSLeay can be found at your nearest CPAN, as well as
<
http://search.cpan.org/dist/Crypt-SSLeay/>
Once you have downloaded it, Crypt::SSLeay installs easily using the
"make" * commands as shown below.
perl Makefile.PL
make
make test
make install
On Windows systems, both Strawberry Perl and ActiveState (as a separate download
via ppm) projects include a MingW based compiler distribution and
"dmake" which can be used to build both OpenSSL and
"Crypt-SSLeay". If you have such a set up, use "dmake"
above.
For unattended (batch) installations, to be absolutely certain that
Makefile.PL does not prompt for questions on STDIN, set the following
environment variable beforehand:
PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT=1
(This is true for any CPAN module that uses "ExtUtils::MakeMaker").
To skip live tests, you can use
perl Makefile.PL --no-live-tests
and to force live tests, you can use
perl Makefile.PL --live-tests
Windows
"Crypt::SSLeay" builds correctly with Strawberry Perl.
For ActiveState Perl users, the ActiveState company does not have a permit from
the Canadian Federal Government to distribute cryptographic software. This
prevents "Crypt::SSLeay" from being distributed as a PPM package
from their repository. See
<
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/docs/ActivePerl/5.8/faq/ActivePerl-faq2.html#crypto_packages>
for more information on this issue.
You may download it from Randy Kobes's PPM repository by using the following
command:
ppm install http://theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca/ppms/Crypt-SSLeay.ppd
An alternative is to add the uwinnipeg.ca PPM repository to your local
installation. See <
http://cpan.uwinnipeg.ca/htdocs/faqs/ppm.html> for
more details.
VMS
It is assumed that the OpenSSL installation is located at
/ssl$root.
Define this logical to point to the appropriate place in the filesystem.
PROXY SUPPORT¶
LWP::UserAgent and Crypt::SSLeay have their own versions of proxy support.
Please read these sections to see which one is appropriate.
LWP::UserAgent proxy support¶
"LWP::UserAgent" has its own methods of proxying which may work for
you and is likely to be incompatible with "Crypt::SSLeay" proxy
support. To use "LWP::UserAgent" proxy support, try something like:
my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
$ua->proxy([qw( https http )], "$proxy_ip:$proxy_port");
At the time of this writing, libwww v5.6 seems to proxy https requests fine with
an Apache
mod_proxy server. It sends a line like:
GET https://www.example.com HTTP/1.1
to the proxy server, which is not the "CONNECT" request that some
proxies would expect, so this may not work with other proxy servers than
mod_proxy. The "CONNECT" method is used by
"Crypt::SSLeay"'s internal proxy support.
Crypt::SSLeay proxy support¶
For native "Crypt::SSLeay" proxy support of https requests, you need
to set the environment variable "HTTPS_PROXY" to your proxy server
and port, as in:
# proxy support
$ENV{HTTPS_PROXY} = 'http://proxy_hostname_or_ip:port';
$ENV{HTTPS_PROXY} = '127.0.0.1:8080';
Use of the "HTTPS_PROXY" environment variable in this way is similar
to "LWP::UserAgent-"
env_proxy()> usage, but calling that
method will likely override or break the "Crypt::SSLeay" support, so
do not mix the two.
Basic auth credentials to the proxy server can be provided this way:
# proxy_basic_auth
$ENV{HTTPS_PROXY_USERNAME} = 'username';
$ENV{HTTPS_PROXY_PASSWORD} = 'password';
For an example of LWP scripting with "Crypt::SSLeay" native proxy
support, please look at the
eg/lwp-ssl-test script in the
"Crypt::SSLeay" distribution.
CLIENT CERTIFICATE SUPPORT¶
Client certificates are supported. PEM encoded certificate and private key files
may be used like this:
$ENV{HTTPS_CERT_FILE} = 'certs/notacacert.pem';
$ENV{HTTPS_KEY_FILE} = 'certs/notacakeynopass.pem';
You may test your files with the
eg/net-ssl-test program, bundled with
the distribution, by issuing a command like:
perl eg/net-ssl-test -cert=certs/notacacert.pem \
-key=certs/notacakeynopass.pem -d GET $HOST_NAME
Additionally, if you would like to tell the client where the CA file is, you may
set these.
$ENV{HTTPS_CA_FILE} = "some_file";
$ENV{HTTPS_CA_DIR} = "some_dir";
Note that, if specified, $ENV{HTTPS_CA_FILE} must point to the actual
certificate file. That is, $ENV{HTTPS_CA_DIR} is *not* the path were
$ENV{HTTPS_CA_FILE} is located.
For certificates in $ENV{HTTPS_CA_DIR} to be picked up, follow the instructions
on <
http://www.openssl.org/docs/ssl/SSL_CTX_load_verify_locations.html>
There is no sample CA cert file at this time for testing, but you may configure
eg/net-ssl-test to use your CA cert with the -CAfile option. (TODO:
then what is the
./certs directory in the distribution?)
Creating a test certificate¶
To create simple test certificates with OpenSSL, you may run the following
command:
openssl req -config /usr/local/openssl/openssl.cnf \
-new -days 365 -newkey rsa:1024 -x509 \
-keyout notacakey.pem -out notacacert.pem
To remove the pass phrase from the key file, run:
openssl rsa -in notacakey.pem -out notacakeynopass.pem
PKCS12 support¶
The directives for enabling use of PKCS12 certificates is:
$ENV{HTTPS_PKCS12_FILE} = 'certs/pkcs12.pkcs12';
$ENV{HTTPS_PKCS12_PASSWORD} = 'PKCS12_PASSWORD';
Use of this type of certificate takes precedence over previous certificate
settings described. (TODO: unclear? Meaning "the presence of this type of
certificate"?)
SSL versions¶
"Crypt::SSLeay" tries very hard to connect to
any SSL web
server accomodating servers that are buggy, old or simply not
standards-compliant. To this effect, this module will try SSL connections in
this order:
- SSL v23
- should allow v2 and v3 servers to pick their best type
- SSL v3
- best connection type
- SSL v2
- old connection type
Unfortunately, some servers seem not to handle a reconnect to SSL v3 after a
failed connect of SSL v23 is tried, so you may set before using LWP or
Net::SSL:
$ENV{HTTPS_VERSION} = 3;
to force a version 3 SSL connection first. At this time only a version 2 SSL
connection will be tried after this, as the connection attempt order remains
unchanged by this setting.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS¶
Many thanks to the following individuals who helped improve
"Crypt-SSLeay":
Gisle Aas for writing this module and many others including libwww, for
perl. The web will never be the same :)
Ben Laurie deserves kudos for his excellent patches for better error
handling, SSL information inspection, and random seeding.
Dongqiang Bai for host name resolution fix when using a proxy.
Stuart Horner of Core Communications, Inc. who found the need for
building "--shared" OpenSSL libraries.
Pavel Hlavnicka for a patch for freeing memory when using a pkcs12 file,
and for inspiring more robust "read()" behavior.
James Woodyatt is a champ for finding a ridiculous memory leak that has
been the bane of many a Crypt::SSLeay user.
Bryan Hart for his patch adding proxy support, and thanks to
Tobias Manthey for submitting another approach.
Alex Rhomberg for Alpha linux ccc patch.
Tobias Manthey for his patches for client certificate support.
Daisuke Kuroda for adding PKCS12 certificate support.
Gamid Isayev for CA cert support and insights into error messaging.
Jeff Long for working through a tricky CA cert SSLClientVerify issue.
Chip Turner for a patch to build under perl 5.8.0.
Joshua Chamas for the time he spent maintaining the module.
Jeff Lavallee for help with alarms on read failures (CPAN bug #12444).
Guenter Knauf for significant improvements in configuring things in Win32
and Netware lands and Jan Dubois for various suggestions for improvements.
and
many others who provided bug reports, suggestions, fixes and patches.
SEE ALSO¶
- Net::SSL
- If you have downloaded this distribution as of a dependency of another
distribution, it's probably due to this module (which is included in this
distribution).
- Net::SSLeay
- Net::SSLeay provides access to the OpenSSL API directly from Perl. See
<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Net-SSLeay/>.
- OpenSSL binary packages for Windows
- See <http://www.openssl.org/related/binaries.html>.
SUPPORT¶
For use of Crypt::SSLeay & Net::SSL with Perl's LWP, please send email to
libwww@perl.org <mailto:libwww@perl.org>.
For OpenSSL or general SSL support, including issues associated with building
and installing OpenSSL on your system, please email the OpenSSL users mailing
list at openssl-users@openssl.org <mailto:openssl-users@openssl.org>.
See <
http://www.openssl.org/support/community.html> for other mailing
lists and archives.
Please report all bugs at
"/rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Crypt-SSLeay"" in
"http:.
AUTHORS¶
This module was originally written by Gisle Aas, and was subsequently maintained
by Joshua Chamas, David Landgren, brian d foy and Sinan Unur.
COPYRIGHT¶
Copyright (c) 2010 A. Sinan Unur
Copyright (c) 2006-2007 David Landgren
Copyright (c) 1999-2003 Joshua Chamas
Copyright (c) 1998 Gisle Aas
LICENSE¶
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the same terms as Perl itself.