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:mod:`ssl` --- SSL wrapper for socket objects, and utility functions
====================================================================
.. module:: ssl
:synopsis: SSL wrapper for socket objects, and utility functions
.. versionadded:: 2.6
This module provides access to Transport Layer Security (often known
as "Secure Sockets Layer") encryption and peer authentication
facilities for network sockets, both client-side and server-side.
This module uses the OpenSSL library. It is available on all modern
Unix systems, Windows, Mac OS X, and probably additional
platforms, as long as OpenSSL is installed on that platform.
.. note::
Some behavior may be platform dependent, since calls are made to the operating
system socket APIs.
This section documents the objects and functions in the `ssl` module;
for more general information about TLS, SSL, and certificates, the
reader is referred to the paper, *Introducing SSL and Certificates using OpenSSL*, by Frederick J. Hirsch, at
http://old.pseudonym.org/ssl/wwwj-index.html.
This module defines a class, :class:`ssl.sslsocket`, which is
derived from the :class:`socket.socket` type, and supports additional
:meth:`read` and :meth:`write` methods, along with a method, :meth:`getpeercert`,
to retrieve the certificate of the other side of the connection.
This module defines the following functions, exceptions, and constants:
.. function:: cert_time_to_seconds(timestring)
Returns a floating-point value containing a normal seconds-after-the-epoch time
value, given the time-string representing the "notBefore" or "notAfter" date
from a certificate.
Here's an example::
>>> import ssl
>>> ssl.cert_time_to_seconds("May 9 00:00:00 2007 GMT")
1178694000.0
>>> import time
>>> time.ctime(ssl.cert_time_to_seconds("May 9 00:00:00 2007 GMT"))
'Wed May 9 00:00:00 2007'
>>>
.. exception:: sslerror
Raised to signal an error from the underlying SSL implementation. This
signifies some problem in the higher-level
encryption and authentication layer that's superimposed on the underlying
network connection.
.. data:: CERT_NONE
Value to pass to the `cert_reqs` parameter to :func:`sslobject`
when no certificates will be required or validated from the other
side of the socket connection.
.. data:: CERT_OPTIONAL
Value to pass to the `cert_reqs` parameter to :func:`sslobject`
when no certificates will be required from the other side of the
socket connection, but if they are provided, will be validated.
Note that use of this setting requires a valid certificate
validation file also be passed as a value of the `ca_certs`
parameter.
.. data:: CERT_REQUIRED
Value to pass to the `cert_reqs` parameter to :func:`sslobject`
when certificates will be required from the other side of the
socket connection. Note that use of this setting requires a valid certificate
validation file also be passed as a value of the `ca_certs`
parameter.
.. data:: PROTOCOL_SSLv2
Selects SSL version 2 as the channel encryption protocol.
.. data:: PROTOCOL_SSLv23
Selects SSL version 2 or 3 as the channel encryption protocol. This is a setting to use for maximum compatibility
with the other end of an SSL connection, but it may cause the specific ciphers chosen for the encryption to be
of fairly low quality.
.. data:: PROTOCOL_SSLv3
Selects SSL version 3 as the channel encryption protocol.
.. data:: PROTOCOL_TLSv1
Selects SSL version 2 as the channel encryption protocol. This is
the most modern version, and probably the best choice for maximum
protection, if both sides can speak it.
Certificates
------------
Certificates in general are part of a public-key / private-key system. In this system, each `principal`,
(which may be a machine, or a person, or an organization) is assigned a unique two-part encryption key.
One part of the key is public, and is called the *public key*; the other part is kept secret, and is called
the *private key*. The two parts are related, in that if you encrypt a message with one of the parts, you can
decrypt it with the other part, and **only** with the other part.
A certificate contains information about two principals. It contains
the name of a *subject*, and the subject's public key. It also
contains a statement by a second principal, the *issuer*, that the
subject is who he claims to be, and that this is indeed the subject's
public key. The issuer's statement is signed with the issuer's
private key, which only the issuer knows. However, anyone can verify
the issuer's statement by finding the issuer's public key, decrypting
the statement with it, and comparing it to the other information in
the certificate. The certificate also contains information about the
time period over which it is valid. This is expressed as two fields,
called "notBefore" and "notAfter".
The underlying system which is used in the Python SSL support is
called "OpenSSL". It contains facilities for constructing and
validating certificates. In the Python use of certificates, the other
side of a network connection can be required to produce a certificate,
and that certificate can be validated against a file filled with
self-signed *root* certificates (so-called because the issuer is the
same as the subject), and and "CA" (certification authority)
certificates assured by those root certificates (and by other CA
certificates). Either side of a connection, client or server, can
request certificates and validation, and the connection can be optionally
set up to fail if a valid certificate is not presented by the other side.
sslsocket Objects
-----------------
.. class:: sslsocket(sock [, keyfile=None, certfile=None, server_side=False, cert_reqs=CERT_NONE, ssl_version=PROTOCOL_SSLv23, ca_certs=None])
Takes an instance *sock* of :class:`socket.socket`, and returns an instance of a subtype
of :class:`socket.socket` which wraps the underlying socket in an SSL context.
For client-side sockets, the context construction is lazy; if the underlying socket isn't
connected yet, the context construction will be performed after :meth:`connect` is called
on the socket.
The `keyfile` and `certfile` parameters specify optional files which contain a certificate
to be used to identify the local side of the connection. Often the private key is stored
in the same file as the certificate; in this case, only the `certfile` parameter need be
passed. If the private key is stored in a separate file, both parameters must be used.
The parameter `server_side` is a boolean which identifies whether server-side or client-side
behavior is desired from this socket.
The parameter `cert_reqs` specifies whether a certificate is
required from the other side of the connection, and whether it will
be validated if provided. It must be one of the three values
:const:`CERT_NONE` (certificates ignored), :const:`CERT_OPTIONAL` (not required,
but validated if provided), or :const:`CERT_REQUIRED` (required and
validated). If the value of this parameter is not :const:`CERT_NONE`, then
the `ca_certs` parameter must point to a file of CA certificates.
The parameter `ssl_version` specifies which version of the SSL protocol to use. Typically,
the server specifies this, and a client connecting to it must use the same protocol. An
SSL server using :const:`PROTOCOL_SSLv23` can understand a client connecting via SSL2, SSL3, or TLS1,
but a client using :const:`PROTOCOL_SSLv23` can only connect to an SSL2 server.
The `ca_certs` file contains a set of concatenated "certification authority" certificates,
which are used to validate certificates passed from the other end of the connection.
This file
contains the certificates in PEM format (IETF RFC 1422) where each certificate is
encoded in base64 encoding and surrounded with a header and footer::
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
... (CA certificate in base64 encoding) ...
-----END CERTIFICATE-----
The various certificates in the file are just concatenated together::
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
... (CA certificate in base64 encoding) ...
-----END CERTIFICATE-----
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
... (a second CA certificate in base64 encoding) ...
-----END CERTIFICATE-----
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
... (a root certificate in base64 encoding) ...
-----END CERTIFICATE-----
Some "standard" root certificates are available at
http://www.thawte.com/roots/ (for Thawte roots) and
http://www.verisign.com/support/roots.html (for Verisign roots).
.. method:: sslsocket.read([nbytes])
Reads up to `nbytes` bytes from the SSL-encrypted channel and returns them.
.. method:: sslsocket.write(data)
Writes the `data` to the other side of the connection, using the SSL channel to encrypt. Returns the number
of bytes written.
.. method:: sslsocket.getpeercert()
If there is no certificate for the peer on the other end of the connection, returns `None`.
If a certificate was received from the peer, but not validated, returns an empty `dict` instance.
If a certificate was received and validated, returns a `dict` instance with the fields
`subject` (the principal for which the certificate was issued), `issuer` (the signer of
the certificate), `notBefore` (the time before which the certificate should not be trusted),
and `notAfter` (the time after which the certificate should not be trusted) filled in.
The "subject" and "issuer" fields are themselves dictionaries containing the fields given
in the certificate's data structure for each principal::
{'issuer': {'commonName': u'somemachine.python.org',
'countryName': u'US',
'localityName': u'Wilmington',
'organizationName': u'Python Software Foundation',
'organizationalUnitName': u'SSL',
'stateOrProvinceName': u'Delaware'},
'subject': {'commonName': u'somemachine.python.org',
'countryName': u'US',
'localityName': u'Wilmington',
'organizationName': u'Python Software Foundation',
'organizationalUnitName': u'SSL',
'stateOrProvinceName': u'Delaware'},
'notAfter': 'Sep 4 21:54:26 2007 GMT',
'notBefore': 'Aug 25 21:54:26 2007 GMT',
'version': 2}
This certificate is said to be *self-signed*, because the subject
and issuer are the same entity. The *version* field refers the the X509 version
that's used for the certificate.
Examples
--------
This example connects to an SSL server, prints the server's address and certificate,
sends some bytes, and reads part of the response::
import socket, ssl, pprint
s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
ssl_sock = ssl.sslsocket(s, ca_certs="/etc/ca_certs_file", cert_reqs=ssl.CERT_REQUIRED)
ssl_sock.connect(('www.verisign.com', 443))
print repr(ssl_sock.getpeername())
print pprint.pformat(ssl_sock.getpeercert())
# Set a simple HTTP request -- use httplib in actual code.
ssl_sock.write("""GET / HTTP/1.0\r
Host: www.verisign.com\r\n\r\n""")
# Read a chunk of data. Will not necessarily
# read all the data returned by the server.
data = ssl_sock.read()
# note that closing the sslsocket will also close the underlying socket
ssl_sock.close()
As of August 25, 2007, the certificate printed by this program
looked like this::
{'issuer': {'commonName': u'VeriSign Class 3 Extended Validation SSL SGC CA',
'countryName': u'US',
'organizationName': u'VeriSign, Inc.',
'organizationalUnitName': u'Terms of use at https://www.verisign.com/rpa (c)06'},
'subject': {'1.3.6.1.4.1.311.60.2.1.2': u'Delaware',
'1.3.6.1.4.1.311.60.2.1.3': u'US',
'commonName': u'www.verisign.com',
'countryName': u'US',
'localityName': u'Mountain View',
'organizationName': u'VeriSign, Inc.',
'organizationalUnitName': u'Terms of use at www.verisign.com/rpa (c)06',
'postalCode': u'94043',
'serialNumber': u'2497886',
'stateOrProvinceName': u'California',
'streetAddress': u'487 East Middlefield Road'},
'notAfter': 'May 8 23:59:59 2009 GMT',
'notBefore': 'May 9 00:00:00 2007 GMT',
'version': 2}
For server operation, typically you'd need to have a server certificate, and private key, each in a file.
You'd open a socket, bind it to a port, call :meth:`listen` on it, then start waiting for clients
to connect::
import socket, ssl
bindsocket = socket.socket()
bindsocket.bind(('myaddr.mydomain.com', 10023))
bindsocket.listen(5)
When one did, you'd call :meth:`accept` on the socket to get the new socket from the other
end, and use :func:`sslsocket` to create a server-side SSL context for it::
while True:
newsocket, fromaddr = bindsocket.accept()
connstream = ssl.sslsocket(newsocket, server_side=True, certfile="mycertfile",
keyfile="mykeyfile", ssl_protocol=ssl.PROTOCOL_TLSv1)
deal_with_client(connstream)
Then you'd read data from the `connstream` and do something with it till you are finished with the client (or the client is finished with you)::
def deal_with_client(connstream):
data = connstream.read()
# null data means the client is finished with us
while data:
if not do_something(connstream, data):
# we'll assume do_something returns False when we're finished with client
break
data = connstream.read()
# finished with client
connstream.close()
And go back to listening for new client connections.