HTTPS on nagg.eu

Get rid of SHA-1 – nginx, TLSv1.2, PFS and SHA-2

Tue, 09 Sep 2014 18:02:32 +0000

Everyone who knows me a little bit knows how much I dislike Google but this time we really should thank them for taking a real step toward a more secure web.
They are finally moving away from SHA-1 to the much more secure SHA-2, more info can be found here: http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.it/2014/09/gradually-sunsetting-sha-1.html

.:. Setup

CentOS 6.5 x86_64
nginx/1.6.1
OpenSSL 1.0.1e-fips 11 Feb 2013

Nginx developers provide an up to date repository (http://wiki.nginx.org/Install)for CentOS:

nginx and TLS v1.2

Sat, 10 Aug 2013 14:03:39 +0000

Given that SSL and TLS, especially v1.0, suffer from serious security issues (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security#TLS) I thought it would be a good idea to use the latest and more secure version of it: v1.2.
On CentOS 6.4 the openssl version included is quite old and doesn’t support TLS v1.1 and 1.2.
So, first of all we have to install the latest version 1.0.1e, it can be done compiling from sources or by adding a third party repository; I chose the latter.

WordPress admin, SSL, Apache + nginx

Tue, 30 Jul 2013 15:49:37 +0000

Let’s say we have a WordPress blog and we would like to encrypt our login pages and the whole back-end of the site.
There are many ways to do it, but since I already have a nginx instance configured as reverse proxy running in front of Apache I’ll use it to protect my admin pages and logins.
In this page I’ll not cover Apache’s configuration, which, by the way, is trivial to say the least, so please refer to this other post: Apache + nginx as reverse proxy.
Using the configuration posted in the above’s link as starting point, to add SSL encryption to admin pages we should add a couple more bunch of lines of code.
First of all, we must create our own Certificate Authority and issue a SSL certificate.
Another option is buying a certificate, but I don’t trust CA (certificate forgery anyone?) and I don’t mind having a properly signed certificate for a page I am the only one accessing to.
Follows a brief explanation on how to create a CA and issue a certificate.