s6-networking
Software
skarnet.org

The s6-tlsd program

s6-tlsd is a program that performs the server side of a TLS or SSL connection over an existing TCP connection, then spawns an application. It is meant to make network communications secure even for applications that do not natively support TLS/SSL.

s6-networking does not include cryptographic software. All the crypto used in s6-tlsd is provided by the chosen SSL backend: BearSSL or LibreSSL, depending on the options given when configuring s6-networking.

Interface

     s6-tlsd [ -S | -s ] [ -Y | -y ] [ -Z | -z ] [ -v verbosity ] [ -K kimeout ] [ -- ] prog...

• s6-tlsd expects to have an open TCP connection it can talk to on its stdin (for reading) and stdout (for writing).
• It spawns prog... as a child process, interposing itself between it and the network. In other words: prog still reads cleartext on its stdin and writes cleartext on its stdout, but those will actually be pipes to s6-tlsd, which will read ciphertext from its own stdin (the network) and write ciphertext to its own stdout (the network).
• It initiates the server side of a TLS/SSL handshake over the network connection, expecting a TLS/SSL client on the other side.
• It manages the encryption/decryption of all the messages between prog and the client. prog speaks plaintext, but only ciphertext is sent on the network.
• When prog exits, s6-tlsd exits.

Exit codes

• 96: error while configuring the TLS/SSL context - for instance, invalid private key or server certificate files.
• 97: error while setting up the TLS/SSL client engine.
• 98: TLS/SSL error while running the engine.
• 100: wrong usage.
• 111: system call failed.

If the TLS/SSL connection closes cleanly, s6-tlsd waits for prog to exit, then exits with an approximation of prog's exit code.

Protocol version and parameters

During the TLS/SSL handshake, s6-tlsd tries the versions of the protocol that is supported by default by the backend, with the default algorithms and cipher suites; the backend normally ensures that the most secure combination is tried first, with slow degradation until the client and the server agree.

• For BearSSL, this means use of the br_ssl_server_init_full_rsa() or br_ssl_server_init_full_ec() function. The supported protocol versions are described here.
• For LibreSSL, this means use of the tls_config_set_protocols(TLS_PROTOCOLS_DEFAULT) call.

As a server, s6-tlsd can be conservative in its choice of protocols. It is currently not very conservative when using the BearSSL backend; it could become more so in the future, by defining a custom server profile that supports only TLS-1.2 but with several algorithms and cipher suites.

Environment variables

Read

s6-tlsd expects to have the following environment variables set:

• KEYFILE: a path to the file containing the server's private key, DER- or PEM-encoded.
• CERTFILE: a path to the file containing the server's certificate, DER- or PEM-encoded. If PEM-encoded, the file can actually contain a chain of certificates.

If one of those variables is unset, s6-tlsd will refuse to run.

If you are using client certificats, s6-tlsd also requires either one of the following variables to be set:

• CADIR: a directory where trust anchors (i.e. root or intermediate CA certificates) can be found, one per file, DER- or PEM-encoded.
• CAFILE: a file containing the whole set of trust anchors, PEM-encoded.

If s6-tlsd is run as root, it can also read two more environment variables, TLS_UID and TLS_GID, which contain a numeric uid and a numeric gid; s6-tlsd then drops its root privileges to this uid/gid after spawning prog.... This ensures that the TLS/engine and the application run with different privileges.

Note that prog... should drop its own root privileges by its own means: the s6-applyuidgid program is a way of doing it. If the s6-tlsd invocation actually comes from a s6-tlsserver command line, and privilege-dropping options (-G, -g, -u or -U) have been given to s6-tlsserver, then s6-applyuidgid directly follows s6-tlsd on the command line, in order to also drop the child's privileges before executing the application. The point of that setup is:

• To read the private key file as root
• To run the application as a non-root user
• To run s6-tlsd as a different non-root user
• That way, even if s6-tlsd, the application, or both, get compromised, the private key is still secure.

Written

Unless the -Z option has been given to s6-tlsd, prog... is run with all the TLS/SSL variables unset: CADIR, CAFILE, KEYFILE, CERTFILE, TLS_UID and TLS_GID. The goal is for s6-tlsd to be, by default, as invisible as possible.

SSL close handling

If prog initiates the end of the session by sending EOF, there are two ways for the TLS/SSL layer to handle it.

• It can send a close_notify alert, and wait for an acknowledgement from the peer, at which point the connection is closed. The advantage of this setup is that it is secure even when the application protocol is not auto-terminated, i.e. when it does not know when its data stops. Old protocols such as HTTP-0.9 are in this case. The drawback of this setup is that it breaks full-duplex: once a peer has sent the close_notify, it must discard all the incoming records that are not a close_notify from the other peer. So if a client sends EOF while it is still receiving data from the server, the connection closes immediately and the data can be truncated.
• It can simply transmit the EOF, shutting down half the TCP connection, and wait for the EOF back. The advantage of this setup is that it maintains full-duplex: a client can send EOF after its initial request, and still receive a complete answer from the server. The drawback is that it is insecure when the application protocol is not auto-terminated.

Nowadays (2016), most protocols are auto-terminated, so it is not dangerous anymore to use EOF tranmission, and that is the default for s6-tlsd. Nevertheless, by using the -S option, you can force it to use the close_notify method if your application requires it to be secure.

s6-tlsd options

• -v verbosity : Be more or less verbose. Default for verbosity is 1. 0 is quiet, 2 is verbose, more than 2 is debug output. This option currently has no effect.
• -Z : do not clean the environment of s6-tlsd-related variables before spawning prog....
• -z : clean the environment of s6-tlsd-related variables before spawning prog.... This is the default.
• -S : send a close_notify alert and break the connection when prog sends EOF.
• -s : transmit EOF by half-closing the TCP connection without using close_notify. This is the default.
• -Y : Require an optional client certificate.
• -y : Require a mandatory client certificate. The default, with neither the -Y nor the -y option, is not to require a client certificate at all.
• -K kimeout : close the connection if kimeout milliseconds elapse without any data being received from either side. The default is 0, which means infinite timeout (never kill the connection).

Notes

• The goal of the s6-tlsd interface (and its client-side companion s6-tlsc) is to make it so that if you have a client, run by the command line client... that speaks a cleartext protocol to a server run by the command line server..., then if the server has the proper private key and certificate, and the client has the proper list of trust anchors, you can just change the client command line to s6-tlsc client... and the server command line to s6-tlsd server... without changing the client or the server themselves, and the communication between them will be secure.