info gnutls

8.4.1 Setting Up a Test HTTPS Server

Running your own TLS server based on GnuTLS can be useful when debugging clients and/or GnuTLS itself. This section describes how to use gnutls-serv as a simple HTTPS server.

The most basic server can be started as:

gnutls-serv --http

It will only support anonymous ciphersuites, which many TLS clients refuse to use.

The next step is to add support for X.509. First we generate a CA:

certtool --generate-privkey > x509-ca-key.pem
echo 'cn = GnuTLS test CA' > ca.tmpl
echo 'ca' >> ca.tmpl
echo 'cert_signing_key' >> ca.tmpl
certtool --generate-self-signed --load-privkey x509-ca-key.pem \
  --template ca.tmpl --outfile x509-ca.pem
...

Then generate a server certificate. Remember to change the dns_name value to the name of your server host, or skip that command to avoid the field.

certtool --generate-privkey > x509-server-key.pem
echo 'organization = GnuTLS test server' > server.tmpl
echo 'cn = test.gnutls.org' >> server.tmpl
echo 'tls_www_server' >> server.tmpl
echo 'encryption_key' >> server.tmpl
echo 'signing_key' >> server.tmpl
echo 'dns_name = test.gnutls.org' >> server.tmpl
certtool --generate-certificate --load-privkey x509-server-key.pem \
  --load-ca-certificate x509-ca.pem --load-ca-privkey x509-ca-key.pem \
  --template server.tmpl --outfile x509-server.pem
...

For use in the client, you may want to generate a client certificate as well.

certtool --generate-privkey > x509-client-key.pem
echo 'cn = GnuTLS test client' > client.tmpl
echo 'tls_www_client' >> client.tmpl
echo 'encryption_key' >> client.tmpl
echo 'signing_key' >> client.tmpl
certtool --generate-certificate --load-privkey x509-client-key.pem \
  --load-ca-certificate x509-ca.pem --load-ca-privkey x509-ca-key.pem \
  --template client.tmpl --outfile x509-client.pem
...

To be able to import the client key/certificate into some applications, you will need to convert them into a PKCS#12 structure. This also encrypts the security sensitive key with a password.

certtool --to-p12 --load-privkey x509-client-key.pem --load-certificate x509-client.pem --outder --outfile x509-client.p12

For icing, we'll create a proxy certificate for the client too.

certtool --generate-privkey > x509-proxy-key.pem
echo 'cn = GnuTLS test client proxy' > proxy.tmpl
certtool --generate-proxy --load-privkey x509-proxy-key.pem \
  --load-ca-certificate x509-client.pem --load-ca-privkey x509-client-key.pem \
  --load-certificate x509-client.pem --template proxy.tmpl \
  --outfile x509-proxy.pem
...

Then start the server again:

gnutls-serv --http \
            --x509cafile x509-ca.pem \
            --x509keyfile x509-server-key.pem \
            --x509certfile x509-server.pem

Try connecting to the server using your web browser. Note that the server listens to port 5556 by default.

While you are at it, to allow connections using DSA, you can also create a DSA key and certificate for the server. These credentials will be used in the final example below.

certtool --generate-privkey --dsa > x509-server-key-dsa.pem
certtool --generate-certificate --load-privkey x509-server-key-dsa.pem \
  --load-ca-certificate x509-ca.pem --load-ca-privkey x509-ca-key.pem \
  --template server.tmpl --outfile x509-server-dsa.pem
...

The next step is to create OpenPGP credentials for the server.

gpg --gen-key
...enter whatever details you want, use 'test.gnutls.org' as name...

Make a note of the OpenPGP key identifier of the newly generated key, here it was 5D1D14D8. You will need to export the key for GnuTLS to be able to use it.

gpg -a --export 5D1D14D8 > openpgp-server.txt
gpg --export 5D1D14D8 > openpgp-server.bin
gpg --export-secret-keys 5D1D14D8 > openpgp-server-key.bin
gpg -a --export-secret-keys 5D1D14D8 > openpgp-server-key.txt

Let's start the server with support for OpenPGP credentials:

gnutls-serv --http \
            --pgpkeyfile openpgp-server-key.txt \
            --pgpcertfile openpgp-server.txt

The next step is to add support for SRP authentication.

srptool --create-conf srp-tpasswd.conf
srptool --passwd-conf srp-tpasswd.conf --username jas --passwd srp-passwd.txt
Enter password: [TYPE "foo"]

Start the server with SRP support:

gnutls-serv --http \
            --srppasswdconf srp-tpasswd.conf \
            --srppasswd srp-passwd.txt

Let's also add support for PSK.

$ psktool --passwd psk-passwd.txt

Start the server with PSK support:

gnutls-serv --http \
            --pskpasswd psk-passwd.txt

Finally, we start the server with all the earlier parameters and you get this command:

gnutls-serv --http \
            --x509cafile x509-ca.pem \
            --x509keyfile x509-server-key.pem \
            --x509certfile x509-server.pem \
            --x509dsakeyfile x509-server-key-dsa.pem \
            --x509dsacertfile x509-server-dsa.pem \
            --pgpkeyfile openpgp-server-key.txt \
            --pgpcertfile openpgp-server.txt \
            --srppasswdconf srp-tpasswd.conf \
            --srppasswd srp-passwd.txt \
            --pskpasswd psk-passwd.txt

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