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authorGeoff Thorpe <geoff@openssl.org>2002-08-05 16:27:01 +0000
committerGeoff Thorpe <geoff@openssl.org>2002-08-05 16:27:01 +0000
commit5bf738737da9c9c09a73686f945c22d5eb2e1a74 (patch)
treeda1e665842ab91d20b406016471286fadc109d6c /doc/crypto/DH_set_method.pod
parent415e03aa6f4f15460c1c94177018f63f9ecfca61 (diff)
These are updates/fixes to DH/DSA/RAND docs based on the fixes to the RSA
docs. There were a couple of other places (including RSA) where the docs were not quite synchronised with the API that are now fixed. One or two still remain to be fixed though ...
Diffstat (limited to 'doc/crypto/DH_set_method.pod')
-rw-r--r--doc/crypto/DH_set_method.pod102
1 files changed, 60 insertions, 42 deletions
diff --git a/doc/crypto/DH_set_method.pod b/doc/crypto/DH_set_method.pod
index d990bf8786..73261fc467 100644
--- a/doc/crypto/DH_set_method.pod
+++ b/doc/crypto/DH_set_method.pod
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
=head1 NAME
-DH_set_default_openssl_method, DH_get_default_openssl_method,
+DH_set_default_method, DH_get_default_method,
DH_set_method, DH_new_method, DH_OpenSSL - select DH method
=head1 SYNOPSIS
@@ -10,45 +10,47 @@ DH_set_method, DH_new_method, DH_OpenSSL - select DH method
#include <openssl/dh.h>
#include <openssl/engine.h>
- void DH_set_default_openssl_method(DH_METHOD *meth);
+ void DH_set_default_method(const DH_METHOD *meth);
- DH_METHOD *DH_get_default_openssl_method(void);
+ const DH_METHOD *DH_get_default_method(void);
- int DH_set_method(DH *dh, ENGINE *engine);
+ int DH_set_method(DH *dh, const DH_METHOD *meth);
DH *DH_new_method(ENGINE *engine);
- DH_METHOD *DH_OpenSSL(void);
+ const DH_METHOD *DH_OpenSSL(void);
=head1 DESCRIPTION
A B<DH_METHOD> specifies the functions that OpenSSL uses for Diffie-Hellman
operations. By modifying the method, alternative implementations
-such as hardware accelerators may be used.
-
-Initially, the default is to use the OpenSSL internal implementation.
-DH_OpenSSL() returns a pointer to that method.
-
-DH_set_default_openssl_method() makes B<meth> the default method for all DH
-structures created later. B<NB:> This is true only whilst the default engine
-for Diffie-Hellman operations remains as "openssl". ENGINEs provide an
-encapsulation for implementations of one or more algorithms, and all the DH
-functions mentioned here operate within the scope of the default
-"openssl" engine.
-
-DH_get_default_openssl_method() returns a pointer to the current default
-method for the "openssl" engine.
-
-DH_set_method() selects B<engine> as the engine that will be responsible for
-all operations using the structure B<dh>. If this function completes successfully,
-then the B<dh> structure will have its own functional reference of B<engine>, so
-the caller should remember to free their own reference to B<engine> when they are
-finished with it. NB: An ENGINE's DH_METHOD can be retrieved (or set) by
-ENGINE_get_DH() or ENGINE_set_DH().
-
-DH_new_method() allocates and initializes a DH structure so that
-B<engine> will be used for the DH operations. If B<engine> is NULL,
-the default engine for Diffie-Hellman opertaions is used.
+such as hardware accelerators may be used. IMPORTANT: See the NOTES section for
+important information about how these DH API functions are affected by the use
+of B<ENGINE> API calls.
+
+Initially, the default DH_METHOD is the OpenSSL internal implementation, as
+returned by DH_OpenSSL().
+
+DH_set_default_method() makes B<meth> the default method for all DH
+structures created later. B<NB>: This is true only whilst no ENGINE has been set
+as a default for DH, so this function is no longer recommended.
+
+DH_get_default_method() returns a pointer to the current default DH_METHOD.
+However, the meaningfulness of this result is dependant on whether the ENGINE
+API is being used, so this function is no longer recommended.
+
+DH_set_method() selects B<meth> to perform all operations using the key B<dh>.
+This will replace the DH_METHOD used by the DH key and if the previous method
+was supplied by an ENGINE, the handle to that ENGINE will be released during the
+change. It is possible to have DH keys that only work with certain DH_METHOD
+implementations (eg. from an ENGINE module that supports embedded
+hardware-protected keys), and in such cases attempting to change the DH_METHOD
+for the key can have unexpected results.
+
+DH_new_method() allocates and initializes a DH structure so that B<engine> will
+be used for the DH operations. If B<engine> is NULL, the default ENGINE for DH
+operations is used, and if no default ENGINE is set, the DH_METHOD controlled by
+DH_set_default_method() is used.
=head1 THE DH_METHOD STRUCTURE
@@ -82,17 +84,28 @@ the default engine for Diffie-Hellman opertaions is used.
=head1 RETURN VALUES
-DH_OpenSSL() and DH_get_default_openssl_method() return pointers to the
-respective B<DH_METHOD>s.
+DH_OpenSSL() and DH_get_default_method() return pointers to the respective
+B<DH_METHOD>s.
+
+DH_set_default_method() returns no value.
+
+DH_set_method() returns non-zero if the provided B<meth> was successfully set as
+the method for B<dh> (including unloading the ENGINE handle if the previous
+method was supplied by an ENGINE).
-DH_set_default_openssl_method() returns no value.
+DH_new_method() returns NULL and sets an error code that can be obtained by
+L<ERR_get_error(3)|ERR_get_error(3)> if the allocation fails. Otherwise it
+returns a pointer to the newly allocated structure.
-DH_set_method() returns non-zero if the ENGINE associated with B<dh>
-was successfully changed to B<engine>.
+=head1 NOTES
-DH_new_method() returns NULL and sets an error code that can be
-obtained by L<ERR_get_error(3)|ERR_get_error(3)> if the allocation fails.
-Otherwise it returns a pointer to the newly allocated structure.
+As of version 0.9.7, DH_METHOD implementations are grouped together with other
+algorithmic APIs (eg. RSA_METHOD, EVP_CIPHER, etc) in B<ENGINE> modules. If a
+default ENGINE is specified for DH functionality using an ENGINE API function,
+that will override any DH defaults set using the DH API (ie.
+DH_set_default_method()). For this reason, the ENGINE API is the recommended way
+to control default implementations for use in DH and other cryptographic
+algorithms.
=head1 SEE ALSO
@@ -103,9 +116,14 @@ L<dh(3)|dh(3)>, L<DH_new(3)|DH_new(3)>
DH_set_default_method(), DH_get_default_method(), DH_set_method(),
DH_new_method() and DH_OpenSSL() were added in OpenSSL 0.9.4.
-DH_set_default_openssl_method() and DH_get_default_openssl_method()
-replaced DH_set_default_method() and DH_get_default_method() respectively,
-and DH_set_method() and DH_new_method() were altered to use B<ENGINE>s
-rather than B<DH_METHOD>s during development of OpenSSL 0.9.6.
+DH_set_default_openssl_method() and DH_get_default_openssl_method() replaced
+DH_set_default_method() and DH_get_default_method() respectively, and
+DH_set_method() and DH_new_method() were altered to use B<ENGINE>s rather than
+B<DH_METHOD>s during development of the engine version of OpenSSL 0.9.6. For
+0.9.7, the handling of defaults in the ENGINE API was restructured so that this
+change was reversed, and behaviour of the other functions resembled more closely
+the previous behaviour. The behaviour of defaults in the ENGINE API now
+transparently overrides the behaviour of defaults in the DH API without
+requiring changing these function prototypes.
=cut