Knowledge Base

Problem

This message occurs when connecting:

Error: "000000a3:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_RECORD:wrong version number:s3_pkt.c:28"
Error: "SSL: error:140770FC:SSL routines:SSL23_GET_SERVER_HELLO:unknown protocol"
Error: "[error] [client 67.82.186.190] Invalid method in request \x80\x80\x01\x03\x01 

Cause

A unique IP address has not been assigned to the 'VirtualHost' directive in the secure virtual host configuration. Extra lines in the httpd.conf file are disabling SSL sessions to Apache. There is a bad configuration for the ip address mapping on the NAT box for the Firewall. 

Resolution

This occurs for 3 reasons and can be fixed with the three steps below:

1. A unique IP address has not been assigned to the 'VirtualHost' directive in the secure virtual host configuration.

Please assign a unique IP address to the domain name in question. Please assign the IP address to the 'VirtualHost' directive in the secure virtual host container, change the line <VirtualHost _default_:443> to <VirtualHost 43.33.35.298:443> (example)

Here is an example of a secure virtual host container for Apache modSSL:

<VirtualHost 43.33.35.298:443>

#  General setup for the virtual host

ServerName www.domain.com

ServerAlias www.domain.com

ServerAdmin name@domain.com

DocumentRoot /home/domain/html

ErrorLog logs/error_log

ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /home

 

#   SSL Engine Switch:

#   Enable/Disable SSL for this virtual host.

SSLEngine on

 

#   SSL Cipher Suite:

#   List the ciphers that the client is permitted to negotiate.

#   See the mod_ssl documentation for a complete list.

#SSLCipherSuite ALL:!ADH:!EXPORT56:RC4+RSA:+HIGH:+MEDIUM:+LOW:+SSLv2:+EXP:+eNULL

 

#   Server Certificate:

#   Point SSLCertificateFile at a PEM encoded certificate.  If

#   the certificate is encrypted, then you will be prompted for a

#   pass phrase.  Note that a kill -HUP will prompt again. A test

#   certificate can be generated with 'make certificate' under

#   built time. Keep in mind that if you've both a RSA and a DSA

#   certificate you can configure both in parallel (to also allow

#   the use of DSA ciphers, etc.)

SSLCertificateFile     /usr/local/ssl/certs/www.rogerm.com.crt

#SSLCertificateFile /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.crt/server-dsa.crt

 

#   Server Private Key:

#   If the key is not combined with the certificate, use this

#   directive to point at the key file.  Keep in mind that if

#   you've both a RSA and a DSA private key you can configure

#   both in parallel (to also allow the use of DSA ciphers, etc.)

SSLCertificateKeyFile   /usr/local/ssl/private/www.rogerm.com.key

#SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.key/server-dsa.key

 

#   Server Certificate Chain:

#   Point SSLCertificateChainFile at a file containing the

#   concatenation of PEM encoded CA certificates which form the

#   certificate chain for the server certificate. Alternatively

#   the referenced file can be the same as SSLCertificateFile

#   when the CA certificates are directly appended to the server

#   certificate for convinience.

#SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.crt/ca.crt

 

#   Certificate Authority (CA):

#   Set the CA certificate verification path where to find CA

#   certificates for client authentication or alternatively one

#   huge file containing all of them (file must be PEM encoded)

#   Note: Inside SSLCACertificatePath you need hash symlinks

#         to point to the certificate files. Use the provided

#         Makefile to update the hash symlinks after changes.

#SSLCACertificatePath /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.crt

#SSLCACertificateFile /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.crt/ca-bundle.crt

 

#   Certificate Revocation Lists (CRL):

#   Set the CA revocation path where to find CA CRLs for client

#   authentication or alternatively one huge file containing all

#   of them (file must be PEM encoded)

#   Note: Inside SSLCARevocationPath you need hash symlinks

#         to point to the certificate files. Use the provided

#         Makefile to update the hash symlinks after changes.

#SSLCARevocationPath /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.crl

#SSLCARevocationFile /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.crl/ca-bundle.crl

 

#   Client Authentication (Type):

#   Client certificate verification type and depth.  Types are

#   none, optional, require and optional_no_ca.  Depth is a

#   number which specifies how deeply to verify the certificate

#   issuer chain before deciding the certificate is not valid.

#SSLVerifyClient require

#SSLVerifyDepth  10

 

#   Access Control:

#   With SSLRequire you can do per-directory access control based

#   on arbitrary complex boolean expressions containing server

#   variable checks and other lookup directives.  The syntax is a

#   mixture between C and Perl.  See the mod_ssl documentation

#   for more details.

#<Location />

#SSLRequire (    %{SSL_CIPHER} !~ m/^(EXP|NULL)/ \

#            and %{SSL_CLIENT_S_DN_O} eq "Snake Oil, Ltd." \

#            and %{SSL_CLIENT_S_DN_OU} in {"Staff", "CA", "Dev"} \

#            and %{TIME_WDAY} >= 1 and %{TIME_WDAY} <= 5 \

#            and %{TIME_HOUR} >= 8 and %{TIME_HOUR} <= 20       ) \

#           or %{REMOTE_ADDR} =~ m/^192\.76\.162\.[0-9]+$/

#</Location>

 

#   SSL Engine Options:

#   Set various options for the SSL engine.

#   o FakeBasicAuth:

#     Translate the client X.509 into a Basic Authorisation.  This means that

#     the standard Auth/DBMAuth methods can be used for access control.  The

#     user name is the 'one line' version of the client's X.509 certificate.

#     Note that no password is obtained from the user. Every entry in the user

#     file needs this password: 'xxj31ZMTZzkVA'.

#   o ExportCertData:

#     This exports two additional environment variables: SSL_CLIENT_CERT and

#     SSL_SERVER_CERT. These contain the PEM-encoded certificates of the

#     server (always existing) and the client (only existing when client

#     authentication is used). This can be used to import the certificates

#     into CGI scripts.

#   o StdEnvVars:

#     This exports the standard SSL/TLS related 'SSL_*' environment variables.

#     Per default this exportation is switched off for performance reasons,

#     because the extraction step is an expensive operation and is usually

#     useless for serving static content. So one usually enables the

#     exportation for CGI and SSI requests only.

#   o CompatEnvVars:

#     This exports obsolete environment variables for backward compatibility

#     to Apache-SSL 1.x, mod_ssl 2.0.x, Sioux 1.0 and Stronghold 2.x. Use this

#     to provide compatibility to existing CGI scripts.

#   o StrictRequire:

#     This denies access when "SSLRequireSSL" or "SSLRequire" applied even

#     under a "Satisfy any" situation, i.e. when it applies access is denied

#     and no other module can change it.

#   o OptRenegotiate:

#     This enables optimized SSL connection renegotiation handling when SSL

#     directives are used in per-directory context.

#SSLOptions +FakeBasicAuth +ExportCertData +CompatEnvVars +StrictRequire

<Files ~ "\.(cgi|shtml|phtml|php3?)$">

    SSLOptions +StdEnvVars

</Files>
<Directory "/var/www/cgi-bin">

    SSLOptions +StdEnvVars

</Directory>

 

#   SSL Protocol Adjustments:

#   The safe and default but still SSL/TLS standard compliant shutdown

#   approach is that mod_ssl sends the close notify alert but doesn't wait for

#   the close notify alert from client. When you need a different shutdown

#   approach you can use one of the following variables:

#   o ssl-unclean-shutdown:

#     This forces an unclean shutdown when the connection is closed, i.e. no

#     SSL close notify alert is send or allowed to received.  This violates

#     the SSL/TLS standard but is needed for some brain-dead browsers. Use

#     this when you receive I/O errors because of the standard approach where

#     mod_ssl sends the close notify alert.

#   o ssl-accurate-shutdown:

#     This forces an accurate shutdown when the connection is closed, i.e. a

#     SSL close notify alert is send and mod_ssl waits for the close notify

#     alert of the client. This is 100% SSL/TLS standard compliant, but in

#     practice often causes hanging connections with brain-dead browsers. Use

#     this only for browsers where you know that their SSL implementation

#     works correctly.

#   Notice: Most problems of broken clients are also related to the HTTP

#   keep-alive facility, so you usually additionally want to disable

#   keep-alive for those clients, too. Use variable "nokeepalive" for this.

#   Similarly, one has to force some clients to use HTTP/1.0 to workaround

#   their broken HTTP/1.1 implementation. Use variables "downgrade-1.0" and

#   "force-response-1.0" for this.

SetEnvIf User-Agent ".*MSIE.*" \

         nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown \

         downgrade-1.0 force-response-1.0

#   Per-Server Logging:

#   The home of a custom SSL log file. Use this when you want a

#   compact non-error SSL logfile on a virtual host basis.

CustomLog logs/ssl_request_log \

          "%t %h %{SSL_PROTOCOL}x %{SSL_CIPHER}x \"%r\" %b"

</VirtualHost>

2. Extra lines in the httpd.conf file are disabling SSL sessions to Apache.

Please ensure if an extra set of "<IfDefine NotDefined>" references exists in the secure virtual host configuration.

If your secure virtual host container looks like this:

<IfDefine HAVE_SSL>

<IfDefine NotDefined>

  ##

  ## SSL Virtual Host Context

  ##

. . . .

</IfDefine>

</IfDefine>

Please erase the <IfDefine NotDefined> statement and one of the </IfDefine> closing statements.

3. The IP address mapping on the NAT box for the Firewall is not well configured.

Please check the NAT mappings for the firewall, if the incorrect IP addresses are being specified you will not be able to connect securely.

More info here: http://info.ssl.com/Article.aspx?id=12150