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Re: [TLS] Verifying X.509 Certificate Chains out of order

pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann) Tue, 14 October 2008 04:35 UTC

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From: pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz
To: nelson@bolyard.me, tls@ietf.org
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Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:36:08 +1300
Subject: Re: [TLS] Verifying X.509 Certificate Chains out of order
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Nelson B Bolyard <nelson@bolyard.me> writes:

>I think we've been seeing the behaviors of the same product. As you say, if
>you send a no-certificate response, the server continues in the "normal" (no
>client auth) fashion.  But if you DO provide a client cert, then the server
>drops the connection.

I've had a quick look through the logs and this problem has been around for a
long time, the first reports I can find are from 2002-2003 and cover not just
MTAs but also things like SSL-enabled FTP servers.  It also affects quite a
shopping-list of services running a variety of implementations, including ones
with a user base in the 10-million-plus region.  This is why I switched to the
"don't-bother-the-user" default behaviour, it's easier than convincing (say) a
large multinational to change the behaviour of their servers.

(I'll send a few names in private mail to see if they match what you're
seeing).

Peter.

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