[users@httpd] Apache SSL port question

["Schultz, Gary - COMM" <GSchultz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm testing SSL (mod_ssl) on Apache 2.0.55 Win32. Some consultants that conducted a security analysis suggested using ports other than the default 443 port for SSL. Is it possible to configure Apache to use a port other than 443 for SSL and have the URL stay the same, that is, be able to use https://www.somesite.org instead of https://www.somesite.org:1234? If so, are there any real advantages to using a port other than 443? I have added sample ssl.conf code below:

 

#
# This is the Apache server configuration file providing SSL support.
# It contains the configuration directives to instruct the server how to
# serve pages over an https connection. For detailing information about these
# directives see <URL:http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/mod/mod_ssl.html>
#
# Do NOT simply read the instructions in here without understanding
# what they do.  They're here only as hints or reminders.  If you are unsure
# consult the online docs. You have been warned. 
#

 

#
# Pseudo Random Number Generator (PRNG):
# Configure one or more sources to seed the PRNG of the SSL library.
# The seed data should be of good random quality.
# WARNING! On some platforms /dev/random blocks if not enough entropy
# is available. This means you then cannot use the /dev/random device
# because it would lead to very long connection times (as long as
# it requires to make more entropy available). But usually those
# platforms additionally provide a /dev/urandom device which doesn't
# block. So, if available, use this one instead. Read the mod_ssl User
# Manual for more details.
#
# Note: This must come before the <IfDefine SSL> container to support
#       starting without SSL on platforms with no /dev/random equivalent
#       but a statically compiled-in mod_ssl.
#
SSLRandomSeed startup builtin
SSLRandomSeed connect builtin
#SSLRandomSeed startup file:/dev/random  512
#SSLRandomSeed startup file:/dev/urandom 512
#SSLRandomSeed connect file:/dev/random  512
#SSLRandomSeed connect file:/dev/urandom 512

 

#<IfDefine SSL>

 

#
# When we also provide SSL we have to listen to the
# standard HTTP port (see above) and to the HTTPS port
#
# Note: Configurations that use IPv6 but not IPv4-mapped addresses need two
#       Listen directives: "Listen [::]:443" and "Listen 0.0.0.0:443"
#
Listen 443
Listen 1234

 

##
##  SSL Global Context
##
##  All SSL configuration in this context applies both to
##  the main server and all SSL-enabled virtual hosts.
##

 

#
#   Some MIME-types for downloading Certificates and CRLs
#
AddType application/x-x509-ca-cert .crt
AddType application/x-pkcs7-crl    .crl

 

#   Pass Phrase Dialog:
#   Configure the pass phrase gathering process.
#   The filtering dialog program (`builtin' is a internal
#   terminal dialog) has to provide the pass phrase on stdout.
SSLPassPhraseDialog  builtin

 

#   Inter-Process Session Cache:
#   Configure the SSL Session Cache: First the mechanism
#   to use and second the expiring timeout (in seconds).
#SSLSessionCache        none
#SSLSessionCache        shmht:logs/ssl_scache(512000)
#SSLSessionCache        shmcb:logs/ssl_scache(512000)
#SSLSessionCache         dbm:logs/ssl_scache
SSLSessionCacheTimeout  300

 

#   Semaphore:
#   Configure the path to the mutual exclusion semaphore the
#   SSL engine uses internally for inter-process synchronization.
#SSLMutex  file:logs/ssl_mutex

 

##
## SSL Virtual Host Context
##

 

<VirtualHost www.somesite.org:1234>

 

#   General setup for the virtual host
DocumentRoot "d:/apache2root/htdocs"
ServerName www.somesite.org:1234
ServerAdmin you@xxxxxxxxxxx
ErrorLog logs/error_log
TransferLog logs/access_log

 

#   SSL Engine Switch:
#   Enable/Disable SSL for this virtual host.
SSLEngine on

 

#   SSL Cipher Suite:
#   List the ciphers that the client is permitted to negotiate.
#   See the mod_ssl documentation for a complete list.
SSLCipherSuite ALL:!ADH:!EXPORT56:RC4+RSA:+HIGH:+MEDIUM:+LOW:+SSLv2:+EXP:+eNULL

 

#   Server Certificate:
#   Point SSLCertificateFile at a PEM encoded certificate.  If
#   the certificate is encrypted, then you will be prompted for a
#   pass phrase.  Note that a kill -HUP will prompt again.  Keep
#   in mind that if you have both an RSA and a DSA certificate you
#   can configure both in parallel (to also allow the use of DSA
#   ciphers, etc.)
SSLCertificateFile conf/ssl/server.crt
#SSLCertificateFile conf/ssl.crt/server-dsa.crt

 

#   Server Private Key:
#   If the key is not combined with the certificate, use this
#   directive to point at the key file.  Keep in mind that if
#   you've both a RSA and a DSA private key you can configure
#   both in parallel (to also allow the use of DSA ciphers, etc.)
SSLCertificateKeyFile conf/ssl/server.key
#SSLCertificateKeyFile conf/ssl.key/server-dsa.key

 

#   Server Certificate Chain:
#   Point SSLCertificateChainFile at a file containing the
#   concatenation of PEM encoded CA certificates which form the
#   certificate chain for the server certificate. Alternatively
#   the referenced file can be the same as SSLCertificateFile
#   when the CA certificates are directly appended to the server
#   certificate for convenience.
#SSLCertificateChainFile conf/ssl.crt/ca.crt

 

#   Certificate Authority (CA):
#   Set the CA certificate verification path where to find CA
#   certificates for client authentication or alternatively one
#   huge file containing all of them (file must be PEM encoded)
#   Note: Inside SSLCACertificatePath you need hash symlinks
#         to point to the certificate files. Use the provided
#         Makefile to update the hash symlinks after changes.
#SSLCACertificatePath conf/ssl.crt
#SSLCACertificateFile conf/ssl.crt/ca-bundle.crt

 

#   Certificate Revocation Lists (CRL):
#   Set the CA revocation path where to find CA CRLs for client
#   authentication or alternatively one huge file containing all
#   of them (file must be PEM encoded)
#   Note: Inside SSLCARevocationPath you need hash symlinks
#         to point to the certificate files. Use the provided
#         Makefile to update the hash symlinks after changes.
#SSLCARevocationPath conf/ssl.crl
#SSLCARevocationFile conf/ssl.crl/ca-bundle.crl

 

#   Client Authentication (Type):
#   Client certificate verification type and depth.  Types are
#   none, optional, require and optional_no_ca.  Depth is a
#   number which specifies how deeply to verify the certificate
#   issuer chain before deciding the certificate is not valid.
#SSLVerifyClient require
#SSLVerifyDepth  10

 

#   Access Control:
#   With SSLRequire you can do per-directory access control based
#   on arbitrary complex boolean expressions containing server
#   variable checks and other lookup directives.  The syntax is a
#   mixture between C and Perl.  See the mod_ssl documentation
#   for more details.
#<Location />
#SSLRequire (    %{SSL_CIPHER} !~ m/^(EXP|NULL)/ \
#            and %{SSL_CLIENT_S_DN_O} eq "Snake Oil, Ltd." \
#            and %{SSL_CLIENT_S_DN_OU} in {"Staff", "CA", "Dev"} \
#            and %{TIME_WDAY} >= 1 and %{TIME_WDAY} <= 5 \
#            and %{TIME_HOUR} >= 8 and %{TIME_HOUR} <= 20       ) \
#           or %{REMOTE_ADDR} =~ m/^192\.76\.162\.[0-9]+$/
#</Location>

 

#   SSL Engine Options:
#   Set various options for the SSL engine.
#   o FakeBasicAuth:
#     Translate the client X.509 into a Basic Authorisation.  This means that
#     the standard Auth/DBMAuth methods can be used for access control.  The
#     user name is the `one line' version of the client's X.509 certificate.
#     Note that no password is obtained from the user. Every entry in the user
#     file needs this password: `xxj31ZMTZzkVA'.
#   o ExportCertData:
#     This exports two additional environment variables: SSL_CLIENT_CERT and
#     SSL_SERVER_CERT. These contain the PEM-encoded certificates of the
#     server (always existing) and the client (only existing when client
#     authentication is used). This can be used to import the certificates
#     into CGI scripts.
#   o StdEnvVars:
#     This exports the standard SSL/TLS related `SSL_*' environment variables.
#     Per default this exportation is switched off for performance reasons,
#     because the extraction step is an expensive operation and is usually
#     useless for serving static content. So one usually enables the
#     exportation for CGI and SSI requests only.
#   o CompatEnvVars:
#     This exports obsolete environment variables for backward compatibility
#     to Apache-SSL 1.x, mod_ssl 2.0.x, Sioux 1.0 and Stronghold 2.x. Use this
#     to provide compatibility to existing CGI scripts.
#   o StrictRequire:
#     This denies access when "SSLRequireSSL" or "SSLRequire" applied even
#     under a "Satisfy any" situation, i.e. when it applies access is denied
#     and no other module can change it.
#   o OptRenegotiate:
#     This enables optimized SSL connection renegotiation handling when SSL
#     directives are used in per-directory context.
#SSLOptions +FakeBasicAuth +ExportCertData +CompatEnvVars +StrictRequire
<FilesMatch "\.(cgi|shtml|phtml|php3?)$">
    SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
</FilesMatch>
<Directory "c:/apache/cgi">
    SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
</Directory>

 

#   SSL Protocol Adjustments:
#   The safe and default but still SSL/TLS standard compliant shutdown
#   approach is that mod_ssl sends the close notify alert but doesn't wait for
#   the close notify alert from client. When you need a different shutdown
#   approach you can use one of the following variables:
#   o ssl-unclean-shutdown:
#     This forces an unclean shutdown when the connection is closed, i.e. no
#     SSL close notify alert is send or allowed to received.  This violates
#     the SSL/TLS standard but is needed for some brain-dead browsers. Use
#     this when you receive I/O errors because of the standard approach where
#     mod_ssl sends the close notify alert.
#   o ssl-accurate-shutdown:
#     This forces an accurate shutdown when the connection is closed, i.e. a
#     SSL close notify alert is send and mod_ssl waits for the close notify
#     alert of the client. This is 100% SSL/TLS standard compliant, but in
#     practice often causes hanging connections with brain-dead browsers. Use
#     this only for browsers where you know that their SSL implementation
#     works correctly.
#   Notice: Most problems of broken clients are also related to the HTTP
#   keep-alive facility, so you usually additionally want to disable
#   keep-alive for those clients, too. Use variable "nokeepalive" for this.
#   Similarly, one has to force some clients to use HTTP/1.0 to workaround
#   their broken HTTP/1.1 implementation. Use variables "downgrade-1.0" and
#   "force-response-1.0" for this.
SetEnvIf User-Agent ".*MSIE.*" \
         nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown \
         downgrade-1.0 force-response-1.0

 

#   Per-Server Logging:
#   The home of a custom SSL log file. Use this when you want a
#   compact non-error SSL logfile on a virtual host basis.
CustomLog logs/ssl_request_log \
          "%t %h %{SSL_PROTOCOL}x %{SSL_CIPHER}x \"%r\" %b"

 

</VirtualHost>                                 

 

#</IfDefine>

===============================

 

Note, the following works with https://www.somesite.org

 

<VirtualHost www.somesite.org:443>

 

#   General setup for the virtual host
DocumentRoot "d:/apache2root/htdocs"

ServerName www.somesite.org:443
...

 

 

Making the change below worked with https://www.somesite.org:1234 but not with https://www.somesite.org

 

<VirtualHost www.somesite.org:1234>

 

#   General setup for the virtual host
DocumentRoot "d:/apache2root/htdocs"
ServerName www.somesite.org
...

 

 

Making the change below does not work with http://www.somesite.org:1234 or https://www.somesite.org

 

<VirtualHost www.somesite.org>

 

#   General setup for the virtual host
DocumentRoot "d:/apache2root/htdocs"

ServerName www.somesite.org:1234
...

 

 

All assistance is greatly appreciated.

 

Gary T. Schultz, IT Administrator

Wisconsin Department of Commerce

http://commerce.wi.gov

gschultz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx