1 Providers run-time configuration
2 ================================
4 Currently any provider run-time activation requires presence of the
5 initialization parameters in the OpenSSL configuration file. Otherwise the
6 provider will be activated with some "default" settings, that may or may not
7 work for a particular application. For real-world systems it may require
8 providing a specially designed OpenSSL config and passing it somehow (e.g. via
9 environment) that has its obvious drawbacks.
11 We need a possibility to initialize providers on per-application level
12 according to per-application parameters. It's necessary for example for PKCS#11
13 provider (where different applications may use different devices with different
14 drivers) and will be useful for some other providers. In case of Red Hat it is
15 also usable for FIPS provider.
17 OpenSSL 3.2 introduces the API
20 OSSL_PROVIDER *OSSL_PROVIDER_load_ex(OSSL_LIB_CTX *libctx, const char *name,
24 intended to configure the provider in load time.
26 It accepts only parameters of type `OSSL_PARAM_UTF8_STRING` because any
27 provider can be initialized from the config file where the values are
28 represented as strings and provider init function has to deal with it.
30 Explicitly configured parameters can contradict the parameters named in the
31 configuration file. Here are the current design decisions and some possible
37 Many applications use PKCS#11 API with a specific drivers. OpenSSL PKCS#11
38 provider <https://github.com/latchset/pkcs11-provider> also provides a set of
39 tweaks usable in particular situations. So there are at least several scenarios
42 1. Configure a provider in the config file, activate on demand
43 2. Load/activate a provider run-time with parameters
48 When the provider is loaded in the current library context and activated, the
49 currently loaded provider will be returned as the result of
50 `OSSL_PROVIDER_load_ex` call.
52 When the provider is loaded in the current library context and NOT activated,
53 the parameters provided int the `OSSL_PROVIDER_load_ex` call will have the
56 Separate instances of the provider can be loaded in the separate library
59 Several instances of the same provider in the same context using different
60 section names, module names (e.g. via symlinks) and provider names. But unless
61 the provider does not support some configuration options, the algorithms in
62 this case will have the same `provider` property and the result of fetching is
63 not determined. We strongly discourage against this trick.
65 The run-time change of the loaded provider configuration is not supported. If
66 it is necessary, the calls to `OSSL_PROVIDER_unload` with the following call to
67 the `OSSL_PROVIDER_load` or `OSSL_PROVIDER_load_ex` should be used.
72 1. We should provide some API function accessing the configuration parameters
73 of a particular provider. Having it, the application will be able to combine
74 some default values with the app-specific ones in more or less intellectual
77 2. We probably should remove the `INFOPAIR` structure and use the `OSSL_PARAM`