Improve SSL_shutdown() documentation

[thirdparty/openssl.git] / doc / man3 / SSL_shutdown.pod

=pod

=head1 NAME

SSL_shutdown - shut down a TLS/SSL connection

=head1 SYNOPSIS

 #include <openssl/ssl.h>

 int SSL_shutdown(SSL *ssl);

=head1 DESCRIPTION

SSL_shutdown() shuts down an active TLS/SSL connection. It sends the
close_notify shutdown alert to the peer.

=head1 NOTES

SSL_shutdown() tries to send the close_notify shutdown alert to the peer.
Whether the operation succeeds or not, the SSL_SENT_SHUTDOWN flag is set and
a currently open session is considered closed and good and will be kept in the
session cache for further reuse.

The shutdown procedure consists of two steps: sending of the close_notify
shutdown alert, and reception of the peer's close_notify shutdown alert.
The order of those two steps depends on the application.

It is acceptable for an application to only send its shutdown alert and
then close the underlying connection without waiting for the peer's response.
This way resources can be saved, as the process can already terminate or
serve another connection.
This should only be done when it is known that the other side will not send more
data, otherwise there is a risk of a truncation attack.

When a client only writes and never reads from the connection, and the server
has sent a session ticket to establish a session, the client might not be able
to resume the session because it did not received and process the session ticket
from the server.
In case the application wants to be able to resume the session, it is recommended to
do a complete shutdown procedure (bidirectional close_notify alerts).

When the underlying connection shall be used for more communications, the
complete shutdown procedure must be performed, so that the peers stay
synchronized.

SSL_shutdown() only closes the write direction.
It is not possible to call SSL_write() after calling SSL_shutdown().
The read direction is closed by the peer.

=head2 First to close the connection

When the application is the first party to send the close_notify
alert, SSL_shutdown() will only send the alert and then set the
SSL_SENT_SHUTDOWN flag (so that the session is considered good and will
be kept in the cache).
If successful, SSL_shutdown() will return 0.

If a unidirectional shutdown is enough (the underlying connection shall be
closed anyway), this first successful call to SSL_shutdown() is sufficient.

In order to complete the bidirectional shutdown handshake, the peer needs
to send back a close_notify alert.
The SSL_RECEIVED_SHUTDOWN flag will be set after receiving and processing
it.

The peer is still allowed to send data after receiving the close_notify
event.
When it is done sending data, it will send the close_notify alert.
SSL_read() should be called until all data is received.
SSL_read() will indicate the end of the peer data by returning <= 0
and SSL_get_error() returning SSL_ERROR_ZERO_RETURN.

=head2 Peer closes the connection

If the peer already sent the close_notify alert B<and> it was
already processed implicitly inside another function
(L<SSL_read(3)>), the SSL_RECEIVED_SHUTDOWN flag is set.
SSL_read() will return <= 0 in that case, and SSL_get_error() will return
SSL_ERROR_ZERO_RETURN.
SSL_shutdown() will send the close_notify alert, set the SSL_SENT_SHUTDOWN
flag.
If successful, SSL_shutdown() will return 1.

Whether SSL_RECEIVED_SHUTDOWN is already set can be checked using the
SSL_get_shutdown() (see also L<SSL_set_shutdown(3)> call.

=head1 NOTES

The behaviour of SSL_shutdown() additionally depends on the underlying BIO.
If the underlying BIO is B<blocking>, SSL_shutdown() will only return once the
handshake step has been finished or an error occurred.

If the underlying BIO is B<non-blocking>, SSL_shutdown() will also return
when the underlying BIO could not satisfy the needs of SSL_shutdown()
to continue the handshake. In this case a call to SSL_get_error() with the
return value of SSL_shutdown() will yield B<SSL_ERROR_WANT_READ> or
B<SSL_ERROR_WANT_WRITE>. The calling process then must repeat the call after
taking appropriate action to satisfy the needs of SSL_shutdown().
The action depends on the underlying BIO. When using a non-blocking socket,
nothing is to be done, but select() can be used to check for the required
condition. When using a buffering BIO, like a BIO pair, data must be written
into or retrieved out of the BIO before being able to continue.

After SSL_shutdown() returned 0, it is possible to call SSL_shutdown() again
to wait for the peer's close_notify alert.
SSL_shutdown() will return 1 in that case.
However, it is recommended to wait for it using SSL_read() instead.

SSL_shutdown() can be modified to only set the connection to "shutdown"
state but not actually send the close_notify alert messages,
see L<SSL_CTX_set_quiet_shutdown(3)>.
When "quiet shutdown" is enabled, SSL_shutdown() will always succeed
and return 1.

=head1 RETURN VALUES

The following return values can occur:

=over 4

=item Z<>0

The shutdown is not yet finished: the close_notify was sent but the peer
did not send it back yet.
Call SSL_read() to do a bidirectional shutdown.
The output of L<SSL_get_error(3)> may be misleading, as an
erroneous SSL_ERROR_SYSCALL may be flagged even though no error occurred.

=item Z<>1

The shutdown was successfully completed. The close_notify alert was sent
and the peer's close_notify alert was received.

=item E<lt>0

The shutdown was not successful.
Call L<SSL_get_error(3)> with the return value B<ret> to find out the reason.
It can occur if an action is needed to continue the operation for non-blocking
BIOs.

It can also occur when not all data was read using SSL_read().

=back

=head1 SEE ALSO

L<SSL_get_error(3)>, L<SSL_connect(3)>,
L<SSL_accept(3)>, L<SSL_set_shutdown(3)>,
L<SSL_CTX_set_quiet_shutdown(3)>,
L<SSL_clear(3)>, L<SSL_free(3)>,
L<ssl(7)>, L<bio(7)>

=head1 COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2000-2018 The OpenSSL Project Authors. All Rights Reserved.

Licensed under the OpenSSL license (the "License").  You may not use
this file except in compliance with the License.  You can obtain a copy
in the file LICENSE in the source distribution or at
L<https://www.openssl.org/source/license.html>.

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