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RE: TLS/SSL-ceritificate & Replication v2.1.3



lør, 2002-08-24 kl. 02:55 skrev Howard Chu:

> Yes, the client's default behavior was changed between 2.0 and 2.1; in 2.0
> the clients default to not verifying any certificates received from a server.
> In 2.1 the clients default to full verification of server certs. You can
> change this default if you wish, and the information is in the ldap.conf(5)
> man page. However, relaxing the client's security checks is generally a bad
> idea.

Others do please note that this "new" convention is standard practice
for all standard SSL/TLS applications - both server and client.

FreeS/WAN IPSEC VPN/Lucent/Cisco etc. peers/clients, NetscapeMozilla
browser clients, Windows VPN clients, Exim MTA running ldaps LDAP
directory and authorisation lookups via /etc/ldap.conf, *everything* in
practice, needs to have access to be able to read the CA certificate
that signed the server's certificate request, or to accept without
question the server's CA-signed public key. One single CA certificate
can suffice for a whole organization with thousands of nodes, or for a
LAN with only a couuple.

The ways of doing this are varied. The (always readable) CA certificate
in question can either be copied to a readable directory on the machine
in question, it can be propagated by means of a so-called PKCS#12
certificate bundle, it can be built into Netscape/Mozilla's cert7.db,
etc. etc. 

In actual fact it goes far deeper than this in practice, with CA
certificate chains, CAs being able to revoke individual public key
certificates, advertise certificate revoke lists and more.

Individual, self-signed server certificates should definitely be
regarded as something from the past and not acceptable any more. From a
security point of view, they're useless - only useful for encryption.

Best,

Tony


-- 

Tony Earnshaw

The usefulness of RTFM is vastly overrated.

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