mod_ssl is an optional module for the

Apache HTTP Server The Apache HTTP Server ( ) is a free and open-source cross-platform web server software, released under the terms of Apache License 2.0. Apache is developed and maintained by an open community of developers under the auspices of the Apache So ...

. It provides strong

cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adver ...

for the Apache v1.3 and v2

webserver A web server is computer software and underlying hardware that accepts requests via HTTP (the network protocol created to distribute web content) or its secure variant HTTPS. A user agent, commonly a web browser or web crawler, initiate ...

via the

Secure Sockets Layer Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a cryptographic protocol designed to provide communications security over a computer network. The protocol is widely used in applications such as email, instant messaging, and voice over IP, but its use in securi ...

(SSL v2/v3) and

Transport Layer Security Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a cryptographic protocol designed to provide communications security over a computer network. The protocol is widely used in applications such as email, instant messaging, and voice over IP, but its use in securi ...

(TLS v1)

cryptographic protocol A security protocol (cryptographic protocol or encryption protocol) is an abstract or concrete protocol that performs a security-related function and applies cryptographic methods, often as sequences of cryptographic primitives. A protocol describe ...

s by the help of the Open Source SSL/TLS toolkit

OpenSSL OpenSSL is a software library for applications that provide secure communications over computer networks against eavesdropping or need to identify the party at the other end. It is widely used by Internet servers, including the majority of HTT ...

. The original version created for Apache v1.3 was initially created in April 1998 by Ralf S. Engelschall via porting Ben Laurie'
Apache-SSL
1.17 source patches for Apache 1.2.6 to Apache 1.3b6. This version is under a

BSD-style license BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses, imposing minimal restrictions on the use and distribution of covered software. This is in contrast to copyleft licenses, which have share-alike requirements. The original BSD lice ...

. The version for v2.0 and later, in contrast, is maintained by

Apache Software Foundation The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is an American nonprofit corporation (classified as a 501(c)(3) organization in the United States) to support a number of open source software projects. The ASF was formed from a group of developers of the A ...

and licensed under Apache License 2.0. It is possible to provide

HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...

and

HTTPS Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is an extension of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). It is used for secure communication over a computer network, and is widely used on the Internet. In HTTPS, the communication protocol is enc ...

with a single server machine, because HTTP and HTTPS use different server ports, so there is no direct conflict between them. It is either the maintainer who would run two separate Apache server instances (one binds to port 80, the other to port 443) or use Apache's

virtual hosting Virtual hosting is a method for hosting multiple domain names (with separate handling of each name) on a single server (or pool of servers). This allows one server to share its resources, such as memory and processor cycles, without requiring all ...

facility where the maintainer can create two virtual servers which Apache dispatches: one responding to port 80 and speaking HTTP and one responding to port 443 speaking HTTPS.

Differences

The original mod_ssl in Apache 1.3 available a
www.modssl.org
is a third-party add-on package requiring additional steps in the compilation and configuration process. Also, the maintainer of the server needs to resolve additional system and Apache dependencies. Apache 2, in contrast, is a built-in module maintained by

, and mod_ssl can be easily activated in the compilation and configuration options.

History

The mod_ssl v1 package was initially created in April 1998 by Ralf S. Engelschall via porting Ben Laurie'
Apache-SSL
1.17 source patches for Apache 1.2.6 to Apache 1.3b6. Because of conflicts with Ben Laurie's development cycle it then was re-assembled from scratch for Apache 1.3.0 by merging the old mod_ssl 1.x with the newer Apache-SSL 1.18. From this point on mod_ssl lived its own life as mod_ssl v2. The first publicly released version was mod_ssl 2.0.0 from August 10, 1998. After US export restrictions on cryptographic software were loosened, mod_ssl became part of the Apache HTTP Server with the release of Apache httpd 2. As of October 10, 2009, the latest version released for mod_ssl in Apache 1.3 is mod_ssl v2.8.31-1.3.41 on February 8, 2008.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Current mod_ssl documentationBusiness Logic Security Testing (BLST)Official mod_ssl website
— this module only for Apache 1.x. Web server software Apache httpd modules Transport Layer Security Articles with underscores in the title

Differences

History

See also

References

External links