IO::Socket::SSL -- Nearly transparent SSL encapsulation for IO::Socket::INET.

    use IO::Socket::SSL;

    my $client = new IO::Socket::SSL("www.example.com:https");

    if (defined $client) {
        print $client "GET / HTTP/1.0\r\n\r\n";
        print <$client>;
        close $client;
    } else {
        warn "I encountered a problem: ",
          IO::Socket::SSL::errstr();
    }

This module is a true drop-in replacement for IO::Socket::INET that uses SSL to encrypt data before it is transferred to a remote server or client. IO::Socket::SSL supports all the extra features that one needs to write a full-featured SSL client or server application: multiple SSL contexts, cipher selection, certificate verification, and SSL version selection. As an extra bonus, it works perfectly with mod_perl.

If you have never used SSL before, you should read the appendix labelled 'Using SSL' before attempting to use this module.

If you have used this module before, read on, as versions 0.93 and above have several changes from the previous IO::Socket::SSL versions (especially see the note about return values).

IO::Socket::SSL inherits its methods from IO::Socket::INET, overriding them as necessary. If there is an SSL error, the method or operation will return an empty list (false in all contexts). The methods that have changed from the perspective of the user are re-documented here:

new(...)

Creates a new IO::Socket::SSL object. You may use all the friendly options that came bundled with IO::Socket::INET, plus (optionally) the ones that follow:

SSL_version

Sets the version of the SSL protocol used to transmit data. The default is SSLv2/3, which auto-negotiates between SSLv2 and SSLv3. You may specify 'SSLv2', 'SSLv3', or 'TLSv1' (case-insensitive) if you do not want this behavior.

SSL_cipher_list

If you do not care for the default list of ciphers ('ALL:!LOW:!EXP'), then look in the OpenSSL documentation (<http://www.openssl.org/docs/apps/ciphers.html#CIPHER_STRINGS>), and specify a different set with this option.

SSL_use_cert

If this is set, it forces IO::Socket::SSL to use a certificate and key, even if you are setting up an SSL client. If this is set to 0 (the default), then you will only need a certificate and key if you are setting up a server.

SSL_key_file

If your RSA private key is not in default place (certs/server-key.pem for servers, certs/client-key.pem for clients), then this is the option that you would use to specify a different location. Keys should be PEM formatted, and if they are encrypted, you will be prompted to enter a password before the socket is formed (unless you specified the SSL_passwd_cb option).

SSL_cert_file

If your SSL certificate is not in the default place (certs/server-cert.pem for servers, certs/client-cert.pem for clients), then you should use this option to specify the location of your certificate. Note that a key and certificate are only required for an SSL server, so you do not need to bother with these trifling options should you be setting up an unauthenticated client.

SSL_passwd_cb

If your private key is encrypted, you might not want the default password prompt from Net::SSLeay. This option takes a reference to a subroutine that should return the password required to decrypt your private key.

SSL_ca_file

If you want to verify that the peer certificate has been signed by a reputable certificate authority, then you should use this option to locate the file containing the certificate(s) of the reputable certificate authorities if it is not already in the file certs/my-ca.pem.

SSL_ca_path

If you are unusually friendly with the OpenSSL documentation, you might have set yourself up a directory containing several trusted certificates as separate files as well as an index of the certificates. If you want to use that directory for validation purposes, and that directory is not ca/, then use this option to point IO::Socket::SSL to the right place to look.

SSL_verify_mode

This option sets the verification mode for the peer certificate. The default (0x00) does no authentication. You may combine 0x01 (verify peer), 0x02 (fail verification if no peer certificate exists; ignored for clients), and 0x04 (verify client once) to change the default.

SSL_verify_callback

If you want to verify certificates yourself, you can pass a sub reference along with this parameter to do so. When the callback is called, it will be passed: 1) a true/false value that indicates what OpenSSL thinks of the certificate, 2) a C-style memory address of the certificate store, 3) a string containing the certificate's issuer attributes and owner attributes, and 4) a string containing any errors encountered (0 if no errors). The function should return 1 or 0, depending on whether it thinks the certificate is valid or invalid. The default is to let OpenSSL do all of the busy work.

SSL_check_crl

If you want to verify that the peer certificate has not been revoked by the signing authority, set this value to true. OpenSSL will search for the CRL in your SSL_ca_path. See the Net::SSLeay documentation for more details. Note that this functionality appears to be broken with OpenSSL < v0.9.7b, so its use with lower versions will result in an error.

SSL_reuse_ctx

If you have already set the above options (SSL_version through SSL_check_crl; this does not include SSL_cipher_list yet) for a previous instance of IO::Socket::SSL, then you can reuse the SSL context of that instance by passing it as the value for the SSL_reuse_ctx parameter. You may also create a new instance of the IO::Socket::SSL::SSL_Context class, using any context options that you desire without specifying connection options, and pass that here instead. If you use this option, all other context-related options that you pass in the same call to new() will be ignored unless the context supplied was invalid. Note that, contrary to versions of IO::Socket::SSL below v0.90, a global SSL context will not be implicitly used unless you use the set_default_context() function.

SSL_session_cache_size

If you make repeated connections to the same host/port and the SSL renegotiation time is an issue, you can turn on client-side session caching with this option by specifying a positive cache size. For successive connections, pass the SSL_reuse_ctx option to the new() calls (or use set_default_context()) to make use of the cached sessions. The session cache size refers to the number of unique host/port pairs that can be stored at one time; the oldest sessions in the cache will be removed if new ones are added. This requires an unofficial patched version of Net::SSLeay to work; check the patches directory, or download the altered version at <http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~behrooz/Net_SSLeay.pm-1.26.tar.gz>. I have contacted Sampo Kellomäki about the patch, and he has assured me that it will appear in the next official release, but that has (as of this writing) not yet seen the light of CPAN.

SSL_error_trap

When using the accept() or connect() methods, it may be the case that the actual socket connection works but the SSL negotiation fails, as in the case of an HTTP client connecting to an HTTPS server. Passing a subroutine ref attached to this parameter allows you to gain control of the orphaned socket instead of having it be closed forcibly. The subroutine, if called, will be passed two parameters: a reference to the socket on which the SSL negotiation failed and and the full text of the error message.

close(...)

There are a number of nasty traps that lie in wait if you are not careful about using close(). The first of these will bite you if you have been using shutdown() on your sockets. Since the SSL protocol mandates that a SSL close notify message be sent before the socket is closed, a shutdown() that closes the socket's write channel will cause the close() call to hang. For a similar reason, if you try to close a copy of a socket (as in a forking server) you will affect the original socket as well. To get around these problems, call close with an object-oriented syntax (e.g. CW$socket->close(SSL_no_shutdown => 1)) and one or more of the following parameters:

SSL_no_shutdown

If set to a true value, this option will make close() not use the SSL_shutdown() call on the socket in question so that the close operation can complete without problems if you have used shutdown() or are working on a copy of a socket.

SSL_ctx_free

If you want to make sure that the SSL context of the socket is destroyed when you close it, set this option to a true value.

peek(...)

This function has exactly the same syntax as sysread(), and performs nearly the same task (reading data from the socket) but will not advance the read position so that successive calls to peek() with the same arguments will return the same results. This function requires OpenSSL 0.9.6a or later to work.

BIpending()

This function will let you know how many bytes of data are immediately ready for reading from the socket. This is especially handy if you are doing reads on a blocking socket or just want to know if new data has been sent over the socket.

BIget_cipher()

Returns the string form of the cipher that the IO::Socket::SSL object is using.

BIdump_peer_certificate()

Returns a parsable string with select fields from the peer SSL certificate. This method directly returns the result of the dump_peer_certificate() method of Net::SSLeay.

peer_certificate($field)

If a peer certificate exists, this function can retrieve values from it. Right now, the only fields it can return are authority and owner (or issuer and subject if you want to use OpenSSL names), corresponding to the certificate authority that signed the peer certificate and the owner of the peer certificate. This function returns a string with all the information about the particular field in one parsable line.

BIerrstr()

Returns the last error (in string form) that occurred. If you do not have a real object to perform this method on, call IO::Socket::SSL::errstr() instead. For read and write errors on non-blocking sockets, this method may include the string CWSSL wants a read first! or CWSSL wants a write first! meaning that the other side is expecting to read from or write to the socket and wants to be satisfied before you get to do anything.

IO::Socket::SSL->start_SSL($socket, ... )

This will convert a glob reference or a socket that you provide to an IO::Socket::SSL object. You may also pass parameters to specify context or connection options as with a call to new(). If you are using this function on an accept()ed socket, you must set the parameter SSL_server to 1, i.e. IO::Socket::SSL->start_SSL($socket, SSL_server => 1). If you have a class that inherits from IO::Socket::SSL and you want the CW$socket to be blessed into your own class instead, use MyClass->start_SSL($socket) to achieve the desired effect. Note that if start_SSL() fails in SSL negotiation, CW$socket will remain blessed in its original class.

IO::Socket::SSL->new_from_fd($fd, ...)

This will convert a socket identified via a file descriptor into an SSL socket. Note that the argument list does not include a MODE argument; if you supply one, it will be thoughtfully ignored (for compatibility with IO::Socket::INET). Instead, a mode of '+<' is assumed, and the file descriptor passed must be able to handle such I/O because the initial SSL handshake requires bidirectional communication.

IO::Socket::SSL::set_default_context(...)

You may use this to make IO::Socket::SSL automatically re-use a given context (unless specifically overridden in a call to new()). It accepts one argument, which should be either an IO::Socket::SSL object or an IO::Socket::SSL::SSL_Context object. See the SSL_reuse_ctx option of new() for more details. Note that this sets the default context globally, so use with caution (esp. in mod_perl scripts).

The following methods are unsupported (not to mention futile!) and IO::Socket::SSL will emit a large CROAK() if you are silly enough to use them:

truncate

stat

ungetc

setbuf

setvbuf

fdopen

send/recv

Note that send() and recv() cannot be reliably trapped by a tied filehandle (such as that used by IO::Socket::SSL) and so may send unencrypted data over the socket. Object-oriented calls to these functions will fail, telling you to use the print/printf/syswrite and read/sysread families instead.

A few changes have gone into IO::Socket::SSL v0.93 and later with respect to return values. The behavior on success remains unchanged, but for all functions, the return value on error is now an empty list. Therefore, the return value will be false in all contexts, but those who have been using the return values as arguments to subroutines (like CWmysub(new IO::Socket::SSL(...), ...)) may run into problems. The moral of the story: always check the return values of these functions before using them in any way that you consider meaningful.

Support for IPv6 with IO::Socket::SSL is expected to work, but is experimental, as none of the author's machines use IPv6 and hence he cannot test IO::Socket::SSL with them. However, a few brave people have used it without incident, so if you wish to make IO::Socket::SSL IPv6 aware, pass the 'inet6' option to IO::Socket::SSL when calling it (i.e. CWuse IO::Socket::SSL qw(inet6);). You will need IO::Socket::INET6 and Socket6 to use this option, and you will also need to write CWuse Socket6; before using IO::Socket::SSL. If you absolutely do not want to use this (or want a quick change back to IPv4), pass the 'inet4' option instead.

Currently, there is no support for using IPv4 and IPv6 simultaneously in a single program, but it is planned for a future release.

If you are having problems using IO::Socket::SSL despite the fact that can recite backwards the section of this documentation labelled 'Using SSL', you should try enabling debugging. To specify the debug level, pass 'debug#' (where # is a number from 0 to 4) to IO::Socket::SSL when calling it:

use IO::Socket::SSL qw(debug0);

#No debugging (default).

use IO::Socket::SSL qw(debug1);

#Only print out errors.

use IO::Socket::SSL qw(debug2);

#Print out errors and cipher negotiation.

use IO::Socket::SSL qw(debug3);

#Print out progress, ciphers, and errors.

use IO::Socket::SSL qw(debug4);

#Print out everything, including data.

You can also set CW$IO::Socket::SSL::DEBUG to 0-4, but that's a bit of a mouthful, isn't it?

See the 'example' directory.

I have never shipped a module with a known bug, and IO::Socket::SSL is no different. If you feel that you have found a bug in the module and you are using the latest versions of Net::SSLeay and OpenSSL, send an email immediately to <behrooz at fas.harvard.edu> with a subject of 'IO::Socket::SSL Bug'. Until very recently, I did not receive any indication when a bug was submitted to the CPAN request tracker, so e-mail is a much more reliable tool. I am not responsible for problems in your code, so make sure that an example actually works before sending it. It is merely acceptable if you send me a bug report, it is better if you send a small chunk of code that points it out, and it is best if you send a patchif the patch is good, you might see a release the next day on CPAN. Otherwise, it could take weeks . . .

IO::Socket::SSL uses Net::SSLeay as the shiny interface to OpenSSL, which is the shiny interface to the ugliness of SSL. As a result, you will need both Net::SSLeay and OpenSSL on your computer before using this module.

If you have Scalar::Util (standard with Perl 5.8.0 and above) or WeakRef, IO::Socket::SSL sockets will auto-close when they go out of scope, just like IO::Socket::INET sockets. If you do not have one of these modules, then IO::Socket::SSL sockets will stay open until the program ends or you explicitly close them. This is due to the fact that a circular reference is required to make IO::Socket::SSL sockets act simultaneously like objects and glob references.

The following functions are deprecated and are only retained for compatibility:

context_init()

(use the SSL_reuse_ctx option if you want to re-use a context)

socketToSSL() and socket_to_SSL()

(use IO::Socket::SSL->start_SSL() instead)

get_peer_certificate() and friends

(use the peer_certificate() function instead)

The following classes have been removed:

SSL_SSL

(not that you should have been directly accessing this anyway):

X509_Certificate

(but get_peer_certificate() will still Do The Right Thing)

IO::Socket::INET, IO::Socket::INET6, Net::SSLeay.

Peter Behroozi, <behrooz at fas.harvard.edu> (Note the lack of an i at the end of behrooz)

Marko Asplund, <marko.asplund at kronodoc.fi>, was the original author of IO::Socket::SSL.

The rewrite of this module is Copyright (C) 2002-2005 Peter Behroozi.

The original versions of this module are Copyright (C) 1999-2002 Marko Asplund.

This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

If you are unfamiliar with the way OpenSSL works, good references may be found in both the book Network Security with OpenSSL (Oreilly & Assoc.) and the web site <http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/SSL-Certificates-HOWTO/>. Read on for a quick overview.

The usual reason for using SSL is to keep your data safe. This means that not only do you have to encrypt the data while it is being transported over a network, but you also have to make sure that the right person gets the data. To accomplish this with SSL, you have to use certificates. A certificate closely resembles a Government-issued ID (at least in places where you can trust them). The ID contains some sort of identifying information such as a name and address, and is usually stamped with a seal of Government Approval. Theoretically, this means that you may trust the information on the card and do business with the owner of the card. The same ideas apply to SSL certificates, which have some identifying information and are stamped [most people refer to this as signing instead] by someone (a Certificate Authority) who you trust will adequately verify the identifying information. In this case, because of some clever number theory, it is extremely difficult to falsify the stamping process. Another useful consequence of number theory is that the certificate is linked to the encryption process, so you may encrypt data (using information on the certificate) that only the certificate owner can decrypt.

What does this mean for you? It means that at least one person in the party has to have an ID to get drinks :-). Seriously, it means that one of the people communicating has to have a certificate to ensure that your data is safe. For client/server interactions, the server must always have a certificate. If the server wants to verify that the client is safe, then the client must also have a personal certificate. To verify that a certificate is safe, one compares the stamped seal [commonly called an encrypted digest/hash/signature] on the certificate with the official seal of the Certificate Authority to make sure that they are the same. To do this, you will need the [unfortunately named] certificate of the Certificate Authority. With all these in hand, you can set up a SSL connection and be reasonably confident that no-one is reading your data.

For servers, you will need to generate a cryptographic private key and a certificate request. You will need to send the certificate request to a Certificate Authority to get a real certificate back, after which you can start serving people. For clients, you will not need anything unless the server wants validation, in which case you will also need a private key and a real certificate. For more information about how to get these, see <http://www.modssl.org/docs/2.8/ssl_faq.html#ToC24>.