[stunnel-users] Stunnel.conf won't load with certain ciphers.

[Thomas Eifert]

Hello all:

I'm running Stunnel 4.52 under WinXP SP3.

Last night I had some questions about how the cipher list in Stunnel 
interacts with the
cipher negotiation routine between client and server, so I did some 
experiments in an
attempt to address those questions.

In the course of doing so, I noticed that, if I attempt to load certain 
ciphers, Stunnel
would stall at configuration load.

Using OpenSSL to list TLS ciphers with 4.52's libraries yields the 
following:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

C:\Program Files\stunnel>openssl ciphers -v -tls1

DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA      SSLv3 Kx=DH       Au=RSA  Enc=AES(256)  Mac=SHA1
DHE-DSS-AES256-SHA      SSLv3 Kx=DH       Au=DSS  Enc=AES(256)  Mac=SHA1
AES256-SHA              SSLv3 Kx=RSA      Au=RSA  Enc=AES(256)  Mac=SHA1
EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA    SSLv3 Kx=DH       Au=RSA  Enc=3DES(168) Mac=SHA1
EDH-DSS-DES-CBC3-SHA    SSLv3 Kx=DH       Au=DSS  Enc=3DES(168) Mac=SHA1
DES-CBC3-SHA            SSLv3 Kx=RSA      Au=RSA  Enc=3DES(168) Mac=SHA1
DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA      SSLv3 Kx=DH       Au=RSA  Enc=AES(128)  Mac=SHA1
DHE-DSS-AES128-SHA      SSLv3 Kx=DH       Au=DSS  Enc=AES(128)  Mac=SHA1
AES128-SHA              SSLv3 Kx=RSA      Au=RSA  Enc=AES(128)  Mac=SHA1
IDEA-CBC-SHA            SSLv3 Kx=RSA      Au=RSA  Enc=IDEA(128) Mac=SHA1
RC4-SHA                 SSLv3 Kx=RSA      Au=RSA  Enc=RC4(128)  Mac=SHA1
RC4-MD5                 SSLv3 Kx=RSA      Au=RSA  Enc=RC4(128)  Mac=MD5
EDH-RSA-DES-CBC-SHA     SSLv3 Kx=DH       Au=RSA  Enc=DES(56)   Mac=SHA1
EDH-DSS-DES-CBC-SHA     SSLv3 Kx=DH       Au=DSS  Enc=DES(56)   Mac=SHA1
DES-CBC-SHA             SSLv3 Kx=RSA      Au=RSA  Enc=DES(56)   Mac=SHA1
EXP-EDH-RSA-DES-CBC-SHA SSLv3 Kx=DH(512)  Au=RSA  Enc=DES(40)   Mac=SHA1 
export
EXP-EDH-DSS-DES-CBC-SHA SSLv3 Kx=DH(512)  Au=DSS  Enc=DES(40)   Mac=SHA1 
export
EXP-DES-CBC-SHA         SSLv3 Kx=RSA(512) Au=RSA  Enc=DES(40)   Mac=SHA1 
export
EXP-RC2-CBC-MD5         SSLv3 Kx=RSA(512) Au=RSA  Enc=RC2(40)   Mac=MD5  
export
EXP-RC4-MD5             SSLv3 Kx=RSA(512) Au=RSA  Enc=RC4(40)   Mac=MD5  
export

C:\Program Files\stunnel>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As such, ciphers RC4-SHA and RC4-MD5 appear to be valid.  However, any 
attempt at using those
in client mode causes Stunnel to stall when reading the cipher from 
stunnel.conf:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2012.03.08 20:17:10 LOG5[432:592]: Reading configuration from file 
stunnel.conf
2012.03.08 20:17:10 LOG5[432:592]: FIPS mode is enabled
2012.03.08 20:17:10 LOG7[432:592]: Compression not enabled
2012.03.08 20:17:10 LOG7[432:592]: Snagged 64 random bytes from C:/.rnd
2012.03.08 20:17:10 LOG7[432:592]: Wrote 1024 new random bytes to C:/.rnd
2012.03.08 20:17:10 LOG7[432:592]: PRNG seeded successfully
2012.03.08 20:17:10 LOG6[432:592]: Initializing SSL context for service 
nntps.1
2012.03.08 20:17:10 LOG7[432:592]: Loaded verify certificates from 
peer-nntps.1.pem
2012.03.08 20:17:10 LOG7[432:592]: Loaded peer-nntps.1.pem revocation 
lookup file
2012.03.08 20:17:10 LOG7[432:592]: SSL options set: 0x00000004
2012.03.08 20:17:10 LOG6[432:592]: SSL context initialized
2012.03.08 20:17:10 LOG6[432:592]: Initializing SSL context for service 
nntps.2
2012.03.08 20:17:10 LOG7[432:592]: Loaded verify certificates from 
peer-nntps.2.pem
2012.03.08 20:17:10 LOG7[432:592]: Loaded peer-nntps.2.pem revocation 
lookup file
2012.03.08 20:17:10 LOG3[432:592]: SSL_CTX_set_cipher_list: 1410D0B9: 
error:1410D0B9:SSL routines:SSL_CTX_set_cipher_list:no cipher match
2012.03.08 20:17:10 LOG3[432:592]: Failed to reload the configuration file
2012.03.08 20:17:10 LOG7[432:592]: Signal pipe is empty

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is the relevant snippet from my stunnel.conf file:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

debug = 7
delay = yes
output = stunnel.log

[nntps.1]
client = yes
sslVersion = TLSv1
ciphers = DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-DSS-AES256-SHA:AES256-SHA
cafile = peer-nntps.1.pem
verify = 4
accept = 127.0.1.1:119
connect = news.server.com:443

[nntps.2]
client = yes
sslVersion = TLSv1
ciphers = RC4-SHA
cafile = peer-nntps.2.pem
verify = 4
accept = 127.0.1.2:119
connect = news.server.org:563

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Any attempt at using ciphers RC4-SHA or RC4-MD5. with or without TLS 
specified, results in
the same configuration crash.

I don't really need to use those ciphers, but since I observed this 
behavior, I thought I'd better
report it.

Any comments welcome.

Regards;

Thomas
.

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