Re: (ITS#6589) Patch - Mozilla NSS - support use of self signed CA certs as server certs

[hyc@symas.com]

rmeggins@redhat.com wrote:
> Full_Name: Rich Megginson
> Version: 2.4.23
> OS: Fedora
> URL: ftp://ftp.openldap.org/incoming/openldap-2.4.23-selfsignedcacert-20100714.patch
> Submission from: (NULL) (76.113.111.209)
>
>
> MozNSS doesn't like self-signed CA certs that are also used for
> TLS/SSL server certs (such as generated by openssl req -x509)
> CERT_VerifyCertificateNow returns SEC_ERROR_UNTRUSTED_ISSUER in that case
> so, see if the cert and issuer are the same cert, and allow the
> use of it (with a warning)

If you checked to see if the issuer is already trusted, I guess the patch is OK.

But that aside, MozNSS's behavior sounds correct to me, and our documentation 
says to use explicit CA certs, separate from the server cert. Is it really a 
good idea to break this validation check?

Also, where does this check occur in the main sequence of verification - has 
the BasicConstraints, KeyUsage, and/or NetscapeCertType already been checked 
successfully?

> This patch file is derived from OpenLDAP Software. All of the
> modifications to OpenLDAP Software represented in the following
> patch(es) were developed by Red Hat. Red Hat has not assigned rights
> and/or interest in this work to any party. I, Rich Megginson am
> authorized by Red Hat, my employer, to release this work under the
> following terms.
>
> Red Hat hereby place the following modifications to OpenLDAP Software
> (and only these modifications) into the public domain. Hence, these
> modifications may be freely used and/or redistributed for any purpose
> with or without attribution and/or other notice.

-- 
   -- Howard Chu
   CTO, Symas Corp.           http://www.symas.com
   Director, Highland Sun     http://highlandsun.com/hyc/
   Chief Architect, OpenLDAP  http://www.openldap.org/project/