sp_ssladmin

Description

Adds, deletes, or displays a list of server certificates for Adaptive Server.

Syntax

sp_ssladmin {[addcert, certificate_path [, password | NULL]] 
	[dropcert, certificate_path]
	[lscert] 
	[help]}
	[lsciphers]
	[setciphers, 
	{"FIPS" | "Strong" | "Weak" | "All" | quoted_list_of_ciphersuites}]

Parameters

Examples

Example 1

Adds an entry for the local server, Server1.crt, in the certificates file in the absolute path to /sybase/ASE-12_5/certificates (x:\sybase\ASE-12_5\certificates on Windows). The private key is encrypted with the password “mypassword”. The password should be the one specified when you created the private key:

sp_ssladmin addcert, "/sybase/ASE-12_5/certificates/Server1.crt", 
    "mypassword"

Example 2

Deletes the certificate, Server1.crt from the certificates file located in /sybase/ASE-12_5/certificates (x:\sybase\ASE-12_5\certificates on Windows):

sp_ssladmin dropcert , "/sybase/ASE-12_5/certificates/Server1.crt"

Example 3

Lists of all server certificates on the local server:

sp_ssladmin lscert
go

certificate_path
----------------------------------------
/sybase/ASE-12_5/certificates/Server1.crt

Example 4

On initial startup, before any cipher suite preferences have been set, no preferences are shown by sp_ssladmin lscipher.

1> sp_ssladmin lscipher
2> go

 Cipher Suite Name  Preference  
-----------------   ---------- 
(0 rows affected)
(return status = 0)

This example specifies the set of cipher suites that use FIPS algorithms:

1> sp_ssladmin setcipher, 'FIPS'
2> go

A preference of 0 (zero) sp_ssladmin output indicates a cipher suite is not used by Adaptive Server. The other, non-zero numbers, indicate the preference order that Adaptive Server uses the algorithm during the SSL handshake. The client side of the SSL handshake chooses one of these cipher suites that matches its list of accepted cipher suites.

Example 5

Uses a quoted list of cipher suites to set preferences in Adaptive Server:

1> sp_ssladmin setcipher, 'TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA, TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA'
2> go

Usage

• The Adaptive Server listener must present to the client a certificate. The common name in the certificate must match the common name used by the client in the interfaces file. If they do not match, the server authentication and login fail.

• When NULL is specified as the password, dataserver must be started with a -y flag. This flag prompts the administrator for the private-key password at the command line.

• The use of NULL as the password is intended to protect passwords during the intitial configuration of SSL, before the SSL encrypted session begins.

  After restarting Adaptive Server with an SSL connection established, use sp_ssladmin again, this time using the actual password. The password is then encrypted and stored by Adaptive Server. Any subsequent starts of Adaptive Server from the command line would use the encrypted password; you do not have to specify the password on the command line during start up.

• You can specify “localhost” as the hostname in the interfaces file (sql.ini on Windows) to prevent clients from connecting remotely. Only a local connection can be established, and the password is never transmitted over a network connection.

The lsciphers and setciphers options allow you to restrict the set of cipher suites that Adaptive Server uses, giving control to the System Security Officer over the kinds of encryption algorithms that may be used by client connections to the server or outbound connections from Adaptive Server. By default, Adaptive Server uses an internally defined set of preferences for cipher suites. See Chapter 19, “ Confidentiality of Data” in the System Administration Guide for more information.

sp_ssladmin setciphers sets cipher suite preferences to the given ordered list. This restricts the available SSL cipher suites to the specified set of “FIPS”, “Strong”, “Weak”, “All”, or a quoted list of cipher suites. This takes effect on the next listener started, and requires that you restart Adaptive Server to ensure that all listeners use the new settings.

You can display any cipher suite preferences that have been set using sp_ssladmin lsciphers. If no preferences have been set, sp_ssladmin lsciphers returns 0 rows to indicate no preferences are set and Adaptive Server uses its default (internal) preferences.

Permissions

You must have the System Security Officer role to use sp_ssladmin.

Auditing

Values in event and extrainfo columns from the sysaudits table are:

See also