TLS (SSL)

Use require('tls') to access this module.

The tls module uses OpenSSL to provide Transport Layer Security and/or Secure Socket Layer: encrypted stream communication.

TLS/SSL is a public/private key infrastructure. Each client and each server must have a private key. A private key is created like this

openssl genrsa -out ryans-key.pem 1024

All severs and some clients need to have a certificate. Certificates are public keys signed by a Certificate Authority or self-signed. The first step to getting a certificate is to create a "Certificate Signing Request" (CSR) file. This is done with:

openssl req -new -key ryans-key.pem -out ryans-csr.pem

To create a self-signed certificate with the CSR, do this:

openssl x509 -req -in ryans-csr.pem -signkey ryans-key.pem -out ryans-cert.pem

Alternatively you can send the CSR to a Certificate Authority for signing.

(TODO: docs on creating a CA, for now interested users should just look at test/fixtures/keys/Makefile in the Node source code)

tls.createServer(options, [secureConnectionListener])

Creates a new tls.Server. The connectionListener argument is automatically set as a listener for the secureConnection event. The options object has these possibilities:

Here is a simple example echo server:

var tls = require('tls');
var fs = require('fs');

var options = {
  key: fs.readFileSync('server-key.pem'),
  cert: fs.readFileSync('server-cert.pem'),

  // This is necessary only if using the client certificate authentication.
  requestCert: true,

  // This is necessary only if the client uses the self-signed certificate.
  ca: [ fs.readFileSync('client-cert.pem') ]
};

var server = tls.createServer(options, function(cleartextStream) {
  console.log('server connected',
              cleartextStream.authorized ? 'authorized' : 'unauthorized');
  cleartextStream.write("welcome!\n");
  cleartextStream.setEncoding('utf8');
  cleartextStream.pipe(cleartextStream);
});
server.listen(8000, function() {
  console.log('server bound');
});

You can test this server by connecting to it with openssl s_client:

openssl s_client -connect 127.0.0.1:8000

tls.connect(port, [host], [options], [secureConnectListener])

Creates a new client connection to the given port and host. (If host defaults to localhost.) options should be an object which specifies

The secureConnectListener parameter will be added as a listener for the 'secureConnect' event.

tls.connect() returns a CleartextStream object.

Here is an example of a client of echo server as described previously:

var tls = require('tls');
var fs = require('fs');

var options = {
  // These are necessary only if using the client certificate authentication
  key: fs.readFileSync('client-key.pem'),
  cert: fs.readFileSync('client-cert.pem'),

  // This is necessary only if the server uses the self-signed certificate
  ca: [ fs.readFileSync('server-cert.pem') ]
};

var cleartextStream = tls.connect(8000, options, function() {
  console.log('client connected',
              cleartextStream.authorized ? 'authorized' : 'unauthorized');
  process.stdin.pipe(cleartextStream);
  process.stdin.resume();
});
cleartextStream.setEncoding('utf8');
cleartextStream.on('data', function(data) {
  console.log(data);
});
cleartextStream.on('end', function() {
  server.close();
});

Table of Contents #

STARTTLS #

In the v0.4 branch no function exists for starting a TLS session on an already existing TCP connection. This is possible it just requires a bit of work. The technique is to use tls.createSecurePair() which returns two streams: an encrypted stream and a cleartext stream. The encrypted stream is then piped to the socket, the cleartext stream is what the user interacts with thereafter.

Here is some code that does it.

NPN and SNI #

NPN (Next Protocol Negotitation) and SNI (Server Name Indication) are TLS handshake extensions allowing you:

pair = tls.createSecurePair([credentials], [isServer], [requestCert], [rejectUnauthorized]) #

Creates a new secure pair object with two streams, one of which reads/writes encrypted data, and one reads/writes cleartext data. Generally the encrypted one is piped to/from an incoming encrypted data stream, and the cleartext one is used as a replacement for the initial encrypted stream.

tls.createSecurePair() returns a SecurePair object with cleartext and encrypted stream properties.

Event: 'secure'

The event is emitted from the SecurePair once the pair has successfully established a secure connection.

Similarly to the checking for the server 'secureConnection' event, pair.cleartext.authorized should be checked to confirm whether the certificate used properly authorized.

tls.Server #

This class is a subclass of net.Server and has the same methods on it. Instead of accepting just raw TCP connections, this accepts encrypted connections using TLS or SSL.

Event: 'secureConnection'

function (cleartextStream) {}

This event is emitted after a new connection has been successfully handshaked. The argument is a instance of CleartextStream. It has all the common stream methods and events.

cleartextStream.authorized is a boolean value which indicates if the client has verified by one of the supplied certificate authorities for the server. If cleartextStream.authorized is false, then cleartextStream.authorizationError is set to describe how authorization failed. Implied but worth mentioning: depending on the settings of the TLS server, you unauthorized connections may be accepted. cleartextStream.npnProtocol is a string containing selected NPN protocol. cleartextStream.servername is a string containing servername requested with SNI.

server.listen(port, [host], [callback])

Begin accepting connections on the specified port and host. If the host is omitted, the server will accept connections directed to any IPv4 address (INADDR_ANY).

This function is asynchronous. The last parameter callback will be called when the server has been bound.

See net.Server for more information.

server.close()

Stops the server from accepting new connections. This function is asynchronous, the server is finally closed when the server emits a 'close' event.

server.address()

Returns the bound address and port of the server as reported by the operating system. See net.Server.address() for more information.

server.addContext(hostname, credentials)

Add secure context that will be used if client request's SNI hostname is matching passed hostname (wildcards can be used). credentials can contain key, cert and ca.

server.maxConnections

Set this property to reject connections when the server's connection count gets high.

server.connections

The number of concurrent connections on the server.

tls.CleartextStream #

This is a stream on top of the Encrypted stream that makes it possible to read/write an encrypted data as a cleartext data.

This instance implements a duplex Stream interfaces. It has all the common stream methods and events.

Event: 'secureConnect'

function () {}

This event is emitted after a new connection has been successfully handshaked. The listener will be called no matter if the server's certificate was authorized or not. It is up to the user to test cleartextStream.authorized to see if the server certificate was signed by one of the specified CAs. If cleartextStream.authorized === false then the error can be found in cleartextStream.authorizationError. Also if NPN was used - you can check cleartextStream.npnProtocol for negotiated protocol.

cleartextStream.authorized

A boolean that is true if the peer certificate was signed by one of the specified CAs, otherwise false

cleartextStream.authorizationError

The reason why the peer's certificate has not been verified. This property becomes available only when cleartextStream.authorized === false.

cleartextStream.getPeerCertificate()

Returns an object representing the peer's certicicate. The returned object has some properties corresponding to the field of the certificate.

Example:

{ subject:
   { C: 'UK',
     ST: 'Acknack Ltd',
     L: 'Rhys Jones',
     O: 'node.js',
     OU: 'Test TLS Certificate',
     CN: 'localhost' },
  issuer:
   { C: 'UK',
     ST: 'Acknack Ltd',
     L: 'Rhys Jones',
     O: 'node.js',
     OU: 'Test TLS Certificate',
     CN: 'localhost' },
  valid_from: 'Nov 11 09:52:22 2009 GMT',
  valid_to: 'Nov  6 09:52:22 2029 GMT',
  fingerprint: '2A:7A:C2:DD:E5:F9:CC:53:72:35:99:7A:02:5A:71:38:52:EC:8A:DF' }

If the peer does not provide a certificate, it returns null or an empty object.

cleartextStream.address()

Returns the bound address and port of the underlying socket as reported by the operating system. Returns an object with two properties, e.g. {"address":"192.168.57.1", "port":62053}

cleartextStream.remoteAddress

The string representation of the remote IP address. For example, '74.125.127.100' or '2001:4860:a005::68'.

cleartextStream.remotePort

The numeric representation of the remote port. For example, 443.

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