README

   1
   2  OpenSSL 1.0.2 22 Jan 2015
   3
   4  Copyright (c) 1998-2011 The OpenSSL Project
   5  Copyright (c) 1995-1998 Eric A. Young, Tim J. Hudson
   6  All rights reserved.
   7
   8  DESCRIPTION
   9  -----------
  10
  11  The OpenSSL Project is a collaborative effort to develop a robust,
  12  commercial-grade, fully featured, and Open Source toolkit implementing the
  13  Secure Sockets Layer (SSL v2/v3) and Transport Layer Security (TLS v1)
  14  protocols as well as a full-strength general purpose cryptography library.
  15  The project is managed by a worldwide community of volunteers that use the
  16  Internet to communicate, plan, and develop the OpenSSL toolkit and its
  17  related documentation.
  18
  19  OpenSSL is based on the excellent SSLeay library developed from Eric A. Young
  20  and Tim J. Hudson.  The OpenSSL toolkit is licensed under a dual-license (the
  21  OpenSSL license plus the SSLeay license) situation, which basically means
  22  that you are free to get and use it for commercial and non-commercial
  23  purposes as long as you fulfill the conditions of both licenses.
  24
  25  OVERVIEW
  26  --------
  27
  28  The OpenSSL toolkit includes:
  29
  30  libssl.a:
  31      Implementation of SSLv2, SSLv3, TLSv1 and the required code to support
  32      both SSLv2, SSLv3 and TLSv1 in the one server and client.
  33
  34  libcrypto.a:
  35      General encryption and X.509 v1/v3 stuff needed by SSL/TLS but not
  36      actually logically part of it. It includes routines for the following:
  37
  38      Ciphers
  39         libdes - EAY's libdes DES encryption package which was floating
  40                  around the net for a few years, and was then relicensed by
  41                  him as part of SSLeay.  It includes 15 'modes/variations'
  42                  of DES (1, 2 and 3 key versions of ecb, cbc, cfb and ofb;
  43                  pcbc and a more general form of cfb and ofb) including desx
  44                  in cbc mode, a fast crypt(3), and routines to read
  45                  passwords from the keyboard.
  46         RC4 encryption,
  47         RC2 encryption      - 4 different modes, ecb, cbc, cfb and ofb.
  48         Blowfish encryption - 4 different modes, ecb, cbc, cfb and ofb.
  49         IDEA encryption     - 4 different modes, ecb, cbc, cfb and ofb.
  50
  51      Digests
  52         MD5 and MD2 message digest algorithms, fast implementations,
  53         SHA (SHA-0) and SHA-1 message digest algorithms,
  54         MDC2 message digest. A DES based hash that is popular on smart cards.
  55
  56      Public Key
  57         RSA encryption/decryption/generation.
  58             There is no limit on the number of bits.
  59         DSA encryption/decryption/generation.
  60             There is no limit on the number of bits.
  61         Diffie-Hellman key-exchange/key generation.
  62             There is no limit on the number of bits.
  63
  64      X.509v3 certificates
  65         X509 encoding/decoding into/from binary ASN1 and a PEM
  66              based ASCII-binary encoding which supports encryption with a
  67              private key.  Program to generate RSA and DSA certificate
  68              requests and to generate RSA and DSA certificates.
  69
  70      Systems
  71         The normal digital envelope routines and base64 encoding.  Higher
  72         level access to ciphers and digests by name.  New ciphers can be
  73         loaded at run time.  The BIO io system which is a simple non-blocking
  74         IO abstraction.  Current methods supported are file descriptors,
  75         sockets, socket accept, socket connect, memory buffer, buffering, SSL
  76         client/server, file pointer, encryption, digest, non-blocking testing
  77         and null.
  78
  79      Data structures
  80         A dynamically growing hashing system
  81         A simple stack.
  82         A Configuration loader that uses a format similar to MS .ini files.
  83
  84  openssl:
  85      A command line tool that can be used for:
  86         Creation of RSA, DH and DSA key parameters
  87         Creation of X.509 certificates, CSRs and CRLs
  88         Calculation of Message Digests
  89         Encryption and Decryption with Ciphers
  90         SSL/TLS Client and Server Tests
  91         Handling of S/MIME signed or encrypted mail
  92
  93  INSTALLATION
  94  ------------
  95
  96  To install this package under a Unix derivative, read the INSTALL file.  For
  97  a Win32 platform, read the INSTALL.W32 file.  For OpenVMS systems, read
  98  INSTALL.VMS.
  99
 100  Read the documentation in the doc/ directory.  It is quite rough, but it
 101  lists the functions; you will probably have to look at the code to work out
 102  how to use them. Look at the example programs.
 103
 104  PROBLEMS
 105  --------
 106
 107  For some platforms, there are some known problems that may affect the user
 108  or application author.  We try to collect those in doc/PROBLEMS, with current
 109  thoughts on how they should be solved in a future of OpenSSL.
 110
 111  SUPPORT
 112  -------
 113
 114  See the OpenSSL website www.openssl.org for details of how to obtain
 115  commercial technical support.
 116
 117  If you have any problems with OpenSSL then please take the following steps
 118  first:
 119
 120     - Download the current snapshot from ftp://ftp.openssl.org/snapshot/
 121       to see if the problem has already been addressed
 122     - Remove ASM versions of libraries
 123     - Remove compiler optimisation flags
 124
 125  If you wish to report a bug then please include the following information in
 126  any bug report:
 127
 128     - On Unix systems:
 129         Self-test report generated by 'make report'
 130     - On other systems:
 131         OpenSSL version: output of 'openssl version -a'
 132         OS Name, Version, Hardware platform
 133         Compiler Details (name, version)
 134     - Application Details (name, version)
 135     - Problem Description (steps that will reproduce the problem, if known)
 136     - Stack Traceback (if the application dumps core)
 137
 138  Email the report to:
 139
 140     openssl-bugs@openssl.org
 141
 142  Note that the request tracker should NOT be used for general assistance
 143  or support queries. Just because something doesn't work the way you expect
 144  does not mean it is necessarily a bug in OpenSSL.
 145
 146  Note that mail to openssl-bugs@openssl.org is recorded in the public
 147  request tracker database (see https://www.openssl.org/support/rt.html
 148  for details) and also forwarded to a public mailing list. Confidential
 149  mail may be sent to openssl-security@openssl.org (PGP key available from
 150  the key servers).
 151
 152  HOW TO CONTRIBUTE TO OpenSSL
 153  ----------------------------
 154
 155  Development is coordinated on the openssl-dev mailing list (see
 156  http://www.openssl.org for information on subscribing). If you
 157  would like to submit a patch, send it to openssl-bugs@openssl.org with
 158  the string "[PATCH]" in the subject. Please be sure to include a
 159  textual explanation of what your patch does.
 160
 161  If you are unsure as to whether a feature will be useful for the general
 162  OpenSSL community please discuss it on the openssl-dev mailing list first.
 163  Someone may be already working on the same thing or there may be a good
 164  reason as to why that feature isn't implemented.
 165
 166  Patches should be as up to date as possible, preferably relative to the
 167  current Git or the last snapshot. They should follow the coding style of
 168  OpenSSL and compile without warnings. Some of the core team developer targets
 169  can be used for testing purposes, (debug-steve64, debug-geoff etc). OpenSSL
 170  compiles on many varied platforms: try to ensure you only use portable
 171  features.
 172
 173  Note: For legal reasons, contributions from the US can be accepted only
 174  if a TSU notification and a copy of the patch are sent to crypt@bis.doc.gov
 175  (formerly BXA) with a copy to the ENC Encryption Request Coordinator;
 176  please take some time to look at
 177     http://www.bis.doc.gov/Encryption/PubAvailEncSourceCodeNofify.html [sic]
 178  and
 179     http://w3.access.gpo.gov/bis/ear/pdf/740.pdf (EAR Section 740.13(e))
 180  for the details. If "your encryption source code is too large to serve as
 181  an email attachment", they are glad to receive it by fax instead; hope you
 182  have a cheap long-distance plan.
 183
 184  Our preferred format for changes is "diff -u" output. You might
 185  generate it like this:
 186
 187  # cd openssl-work
 188  # [your changes]
 189  # ./Configure dist; make clean
 190  # cd ..
 191  # diff -ur openssl-orig openssl-work > mydiffs.patch
 192