Expose OpenSSL's error queue
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- Dominant language
- Python
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Description
Feature or enhancement
Proposal:
On $BIG_CORP's weird OpenSSL that's in a FIPS 140-3 environment, attempting to
connect to a Website with (it's deliberate we're using sockets rather than
something like requests or urllib):
#!/usr/bin/env python3
"""Test TLS 1.2 connection to a site using only stdlib."""
import pprint
import ssl
import socket
def main():
hostname = "www.example.com"
# Create SSL context with TLS 1.2 maximum
context = ssl.create_default_context()
context.maximum_version = ssl.TLSVersion.TLSv1_2
try:
with socket.create_connection((hostname, 443)) as sock:
with context.wrap_socket(sock, server_hostname=hostname) as ssock:
print(f"Connected to {hostname}")
print(f"TLS version: {ssock.version()}")
print(f"Cipher: {ssock.cipher()}")
# Send a simple HTTP request
request = f"GET / HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: {hostname}\r\nConnection: close\r\n\r\n".encode('ascii')
ssock.sendall(request)
response = ssock.recv(4096)
status_line = response.split(b'\r\n')[0].decode('utf-8', errors='replace')
print(f"\nResponse status: {status_line}")
except ssl.SSLError as e:
raise
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
blows up very strangely:
$ python3.13 test_tls1.2.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/opt/bigcorp/test_tls1.2.py", line 30, in <module>
main()
File "/opt/bigcorp/test_tls1.2.py", line 16, in main
with context.wrap_socket(sock, server_hostname=hostname) as ssock:
File "/opt/bigcorp/lib/python3.9/ssl.py", line 506, in wrap_socket
return self.sslsocket_class._create(
File "/opt/bigcorp/lib/python3.9/ssl.py", line 1084, in _create
self.do_handshake()
File "/opt/bigcorp/lib/python3.9/ssl.py", line 1353, in do_handshake
self._sslobj.do_handshake()
ssl.SSLError: [SSL] internal error (_ssl.c:1162)
This is very hard to debug. OpenSSL has an error queue internally that can be
accessed via ERR_error_string
and friends, but Python doesn't expose anything but the top-most message
of the queue, and there's not an easy way to access the rest of it otherwise.
NOTE: the hard way: pull out a debugger, get into OpenSSL, pull
out it's error code, and than map the numbers from the bits to messages. Not
recommended.
We should make the OpenSSL error queue available.
Has this already been discussed elsewhere?
No response given
Links to previous discussion of this feature:
May indirectly fix https://github.com/python/cpython/issues/148594
Linked PRs
- gh-150103
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start with the ssl.py wrap_socket and do_handshake paths, then inspect _ssl.c around the reported error location and the OpenSSL ERR_error_string API. Review linked PR gh-150103 and define completion as making the full OpenSSL error queue available to Python instead of only the top-level SSLError message.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- python
- Domain
- security
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 25/100