openvpn/README.ec
Arne Schwabe 8353ae8075 Implement tls-groups option to specify eliptic curves/groups
By default OpenSSL 1.1+ only allows signatures and ecdh/ecdhx from the
default list of X25519:secp256r1:X448:secp521r1:secp384r1. In
TLS1.3 key exchange is independent from the signature/key of the
certificates, so allowing all groups per default is not a sensible
choice anymore and instead a shorter list is reasonable.

However, when using certificates with exotic curves that are not on
the group list, the signatures of these certificates will no longer
be accepted.

The tls-groups option allows to modify the group list to account
for these corner cases.

Patch V2: Uses local gc_arena instead of malloc/free, reword commit
          message. Fix other typos/clarify messages

Patch V3: Style fixes, adjust code to changes from mbedTLS session
          fix

Patch V5: Fix compilation with OpenSSL 1.0.2

Patch V6: Redo the 'while((token = strsep(&tmp_groups, ":"))' change
          which accidentally got lost.

Signed-off-by: Arne Schwabe <arne@rfc2549.org>
Acked-by: Antonio Quartulli <antonio@openvpn.net>
Message-Id: <20200721154922.17144-1-arne@rfc2549.org>
URL: https://www.mail-archive.com/openvpn-devel@lists.sourceforge.net/msg20521.html
Signed-off-by: Gert Doering <gert@greenie.muc.de>
2020-07-21 22:33:58 +02:00

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Since 2.4.0, OpenVPN has official support for elliptic curve crypto. Elliptic
curves are an alternative to RSA for asymmetric encryption.
Elliptic curve crypto ('ECC') can be used for the ('TLS') control channel only
in OpenVPN; the data channel (encrypting the actual network traffic) uses
symmetric encryption. ECC can be used in TLS for authentication (ECDSA) and key
exchange (ECDH).
Key exchange (ECDH)
-------------------
OpenVPN 2.4.0 and newer automatically initialize ECDH parameters. When ECDSA is
used for authentication, the curve used for the server certificate will be used
for ECDH too. When autodetection fails (e.g. when using RSA certificates)
OpenVPN lets the crypto library decide if possible, or falls back to the
secp384r1 curve. The list of groups/curves that the crypto library will choose
from can be set with the --tls-groups <grouplist> option.
An administrator can force an OpenVPN/OpenSSL server to use a specific curve
using the --ecdh-curve <curvename> option with one of the curves listed as
available by the --show-groups option. Clients will use the same curve as
selected by the server.
Note that not all curves listed by --show-groups are available for use with TLS;
in that case connecting will fail with a 'no shared cipher' TLS error.
Authentication (ECDSA)
----------------------
Since OpenVPN 2.4.0, using ECDSA certificates works 'out of the box'. Which
specific curves and cipher suites are available depends on your version and
configuration of the crypto library. The crypto library will automatically
select a cipher suite for the TLS control channel.
Support for generating an ECDSA certificate chain is available in EasyRSA (in
spite of it's name) since EasyRSA 3.0. The parameters you're looking for are
'--use-algo=ec' and '--curve=<curve_name>'. See the EasyRSA documentation for
more details on generating ECDSA certificates.