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authorBernhard Schmidt <berni@debian.org>2020-09-01 16:52:17 +0200
committerBernhard Schmidt <berni@debian.org>2020-09-01 16:52:17 +0200
commit9fc3b98112217f2d92a67977dbde0987cc7a1803 (patch)
tree29fcc8654ee65d9dd89ade797bea2f3d9dfd9cfd /README.ec
parenta8758c0e03eed188dcb9da0e4fd781a67c25bf1e (diff)
parent69b02b1f7fd609d84ace13ab04697158de2418a9 (diff)
Merge branch 'debian/experimental-2.5'
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+Since 2.4.0, OpenVPN has official support for elliptic curve crypto. Elliptic
+curves are an alternative to RSA for asymmetric encryption.
+
+Elliptic curve crypto ('ECC') can be used for the ('TLS') control channel only
+in OpenVPN; the data channel (encrypting the actual network traffic) uses
+symmetric encryption. ECC can be used in TLS for authentication (ECDSA) and key
+exchange (ECDH).
+
+Key exchange (ECDH)
+-------------------
+OpenVPN 2.4.0 and newer automatically initialize ECDH parameters. When ECDSA is
+used for authentication, the curve used for the server certificate will be used
+for ECDH too. When autodetection fails (e.g. when using RSA certificates)
+OpenVPN lets the crypto library decide if possible, or falls back to the
+secp384r1 curve. The list of groups/curves that the crypto library will choose
+from can be set with the --tls-groups <grouplist> option.
+
+An administrator can force an OpenVPN/OpenSSL server to use a specific curve
+using the --ecdh-curve <curvename> option with one of the curves listed as
+available by the --show-groups option. Clients will use the same curve as
+selected by the server.
+
+Note that not all curves listed by --show-groups are available for use with TLS;
+in that case connecting will fail with a 'no shared cipher' TLS error.
+
+Authentication (ECDSA)
+----------------------
+Since OpenVPN 2.4.0, using ECDSA certificates works 'out of the box'. Which
+specific curves and cipher suites are available depends on your version and
+configuration of the crypto library. The crypto library will automatically
+select a cipher suite for the TLS control channel.
+
+Support for generating an ECDSA certificate chain is available in EasyRSA (in
+spite of it's name) since EasyRSA 3.0. The parameters you're looking for are
+'--use-algo=ec' and '--curve=<curve_name>'. See the EasyRSA documentation for
+more details on generating ECDSA certificates.