ProFTPD mini-HOWTO - SSL/TLS

## SSL/TLS

NOTE: This mini-howto is definitely incomplete. Please contact me with suggestions, questions, requests, etc. for what you would like to see covered here. Thanks!

      http://www.faqs.org/ftp/internet-drafts/draft-murray-auth-ftp-ssl-15.txt

Example `mod_tls` configuration:

      <IfModule mod_tls.c>
        TLSEngine on
        TLSLog /var/ftpd/tls.log
        TLSProtocol TLSv1

        # Are clients required to use FTP over TLS when talking to this server?
        TLSRequired off

        # Server's certificate
        TLSRSACertificateFile /etc/ftpd/server.cert.pem
        TLSRSACertificateKeyFile /etc/ftpd/server.key.pem

        # CA the server trusts
        TLSCACertificateFile /etc/ftpd/root.cert.pem

        # Authenticate clients that want to use FTP over TLS?
        TLSVerifyClient off
      </IfModule>

Debugging
`ssldump`

Frequently Asked Questions

Question: How do I generate the certificate files used by `mod_tls`?
Answer: The `mod_tls` module uses the same certificate files as Apache's `mod_ssl`. The `mod_ssl` documentation explains what the files are, how they are used, and how to generate your own:

      http://www.modssl.org/docs/2.7/ssl_faq.html

Question: Where can I find a list of clients that support FTPS?
Answer: This page is a good FTPS resource:

      http://www.ford-hutchinson.com/~fh-1-pfh/ftps-ext.html

including the list of FTPS clients. On a related note, there have been some reports that Debian's `ftp-ssl` client has a few bugs; using Peter Runestig's `ftp-tls` is known to work.

Note, though, that there are known issues with some FTPS clients:

      http://www.runestig.com/osp.html#NOTE1

Question: How come `mod_tls` does not support "implicit" FTPS (i.e. automatically encrypting sessions on port 990)?
Answer: The short answer is because the Draft no longer specifies support for such a mode. Here is a description of why the alternatives to the current mode (client-requested encryption using standard control channel) are "bad".

The long answer is covered in Eric Rescorla's excellent book, "SSL and TLS". There tend to be two different strategies used when adding new features to a protocol: separate ports for protocol variants, or upward negotiation. Port 443 for HTTPS is an example of the separate ports strategy. The drawback to the separate ports approach is that there is a finite number of ports available, and so this approach does not scale well. The benefit is that use of separate ports tends to require smaller changes to client and server code. Upward negotiation is more flexible, but requires that the protocol support some sort of feature negotiation or extension discovery, allowing clients and servers to easily agree to negotiate "upward" into a secure channel. The authors of the FTPS Draft felt that upward negotiation was the more appropriate of these two approaches for encrypting FTP channels.

Question: Can I require TLS on a per-user basis?
Answer: Prior to ProFTPD 1.2.10rc2, no. The IETF Draft specifying FTP over TLS requires that the TLS handshake occur before the client sends the `USER` command. This means that the server does not know the name of the user that the client will be using when the TLS session is established. It is possible that the client's certificate, if one is even presented, may contain information the server may use to map that certificate to a user, but such mapping is not currently supported by `mod_tls`. Note that this is also the reason the `TLSRequired` directive cannot appear in the `<Anonymous>` context: anonymous logins are based on the `USER` command.

However, in 1.2.10rc2, the `mod_tls` module was modified to allow such per-user TLS requirements. To do this, the `AllowPerUser` parameter of the `TLSOptions` directive is used. For example, the following example `mod_tls` configuration allows non-SSL anonymous sessions, but requires SSL/TLS for all other sessions:

      <IfModule mod_tls.c>
        TLSEngine on
        TLSRSACertificateFile ...
        TLSCACertificateFile ...
        TLSOptions AllowPerUser
        TLSRequired on

        <Anonymous ~ftp>
          User ftp
          Group ftp
          UserAlias anonymous ftp

          RequireValidShell off

          # Note how TLSRequired is set to off here in the <Anonymous> context
          TLSRequired off
        </Anonymous>
      </IfModule>

The modification also allows `mod_ifsession`-based conditions, so that one can have settings like:

      <IfGroup trusted>
        TLSRequired off
      </IfGroup>

However, there is a risk involved in using the `AllowPerUser` option: it causes `mod_tls` not to enforce `TLSRequired` until after the potentially sensitive USER and PASS commands have been sent by the client. This allows clients, even when `TLSRequired on` or `TLSRequired ctrl` are in effect, to send the USER and PASS commands unencrypted. Depending on your site's security needs, the ability to require SSL/TLS on a per-user basis may or may not be worth the ability to require SSL/TLS for the USER and PASS commands.

Question: Why does `mod_tls` break FXP transfers?
Answer: The Draft specifying FTP over SSL explicitly omits site-to-site transfers. A TLS session is established between the client and the server on the control channel and, to save on the expensive overhead of TLS handshake, that session is reused for encrypting traffic on the data channel. In a site-to-site transfer, the client opens two control channels, one with each server, and then arranges for those servers to open a data channel between themselves. However, since the servers have not established a TLS session between themselves, that opening of the data channel fails.

Note that the above happens only if the server requires that TLS be used on data connections (e.g. `TLSRequired` is either on or data), of if the client tells the server that the client will be using TLS on the data connections (e.g. when it sends the `AUTH` command with an argument of `TLS-P`). Without these conditions, site-to-site transfers can occur normally, albeit unencrypted. Encrypted site-to-site transfers are not supported.

Question: How come `mod_tls` does not support SSLv2?
Answer: Various defects have been found in the SSLv2 protocol. Some legacy sites need to support SSLv2 for their HTTP traffic, in spite of its flaws. Use of FTP over TLS is fairly new, however, and there is not much "legacy" in that regard; it was felt that, as `mod_tls` aims to provide strong cryptographic security, supporting a known bad protocol is a Bad Idea.

Question: Using `mod_tls`, FTP sessions through my firewall now no longer work. What's going on?
Answer: The short answer is that FTPS and firewalls (and devices performing NAT) do not interact well. The control connection happens on a well-known port, and has no issues; it is the data connection that poses problems for FTP-aware firewalls. In a non-FTPS session, the firewall can inspect the FTP server's responses on the control connection to a client's `PASV` or `PORT` command, and thus know which on which ports/addresses the data connection will be established. In an FTPS session, though, those control connection messages are encrypted (that is the point of using FTPS, right?), and so the FTP-aware firewall cannot peek. Hence, it cannot know which on which ports the data connection will be established. For firewalls that are configured to always allow a certain range of ports (such as might be configured using the `PassivePorts` directive), FTPS should function without issue.

Unfortunately, this is a rather intractable--and known--issue. Earlier versions of the Draft defining FTPS used to allow something known as "implicit" FTPS, by which a client could contact a well-known port (akin to port 443 for HTTPS; FTPS used port 990) and the server, simply because the client contacted that certain port, would automatically encrypt the session. This approach has several drawbacks (the reason why it was removed from later versions of the Draft), but it did allow for simple TCP proxying. There has been no replacement.

Question: Sometimes my encrypted transfers are slow. Is there a way to speed them up?
Answer: There have been reports that increasing the tunable buffer size (using the `--enable-buffer-size` option of the `configure` script) to 8192 increases transfer speeds, most notably on very high speed networks. Increasing the buffer size does not appear to affect normal FTP transfers (in fact, it may benefit them as well, depending on the client).

Question: I can login using FTPS, but I cannot see any directories. Why not?
Answer: You have most likely configured `mod_tls` to require SSL/TLS protection for data transfers as well as control commands, by using:

      TLSRequired on

However, if your FTPS client does not expect to handle encrypted data transfers (and directory listings count as data transfers, as they are sent over a data channel), you may see your client appear to hang, waiting for data it can read. Make sure your client is prepared to handle the security requirements you have configured on the server.

You may also see the following appear in the `TLSLog` on occasion:

      PROT: unwilling to accept security parameter (C), declining

The `PROT` FTP command is used to set the protection level to be used for data transfers. Some clients send a `PROT` command with a security parameter of `C`, meaning "Clear", which effectively tells the server not to protect data transfers. The `mod_tls` module will refuse the `C` security parameter if, like above, there is "TLSRequired on" in your `proftpd.conf`. This case also indicates a disagreement between the client's security expectations and the security policy you have configured on the server.

Last Updated: $Date: 2004/10/09 22:34:06 $