SSL to the UNIX based CONNX Servers

CONNX Supports SSL/TLS connections from the CONNX client to the 32bit and 64bit CONNX Data Servers running on all flavors of UNIX.

In order to use CONNX with SSL when connecting to UNIX, the following requirements must be met.

  1. The UNIX based CONNX Data Server must be configured to listen with SSL.
  2. A SSL Certificate and Key file are required.

Creating your SSL Certificate and Key file

Use openssl to create your certificate and key file.

CONNX ships with a 64bit OpenSSL command line.  It is located in the OpenSSL directory under the root of your 64bit CONNX installation.

 

Open a command prompt, and navigate to this directory.


Please refer to OpenSSL documentation for details on all of the possible settings when creating keys and certificates.  Here is an example of a self-signed key an certificate creation:

 

openssl req -nodes -x509 -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout key.pem -out cert.pem -days 365 -config openssl.cnf

 

In the above example, key.pem is the private key file, and cert.pem is the certificate file.  Both of these files will be required when configuring the SSL Listener.

 

Enabling SSL for the UNIX based CONNX Data Server

To Enable CONNX SSL for UNIX, the following CONNX configuration settings must be added to the connxserver script on UNIX, bolded below:

 

CNXLISTENSSL must be set to 1

Transfer your SSL Certificate and key to the UNIX system.

Define two configuration settings that will point CONNX to the certificate and key called SSLCERT and SSLKEY.

 

##################################################################################################

# ENVIRONMENT VARS

#

# CNXDIR               = Location of this shell script + the CONNX binaries

# CNXRUNPORT           = Default port (default=6500)

# CNXCONNECTBACK       = Enables / Disables TCP/IP socket sharing

# DEBUG                = 1 ON | 0 OFF

#

#

# See the documentation for complete information on ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

#

##################################################################################################

CNXDIR=/home/cnxuser/connx

CNXRUNPORT=6500

CNXCONNECTBACK=0

DEBUG=1

CNXLISTENSSL=1

SSLCERT=/home/cnxuser/server.crt

SSLKEY=/home/cnxuser/server.key

export CNXDIR CNXRUNPORT CNXCONNECTBACK DEBUG CNXLISTENSSL SSLCERT SSLKEY

##################################################################################################

# DO NOT EDIT THE FOLLOWING SECTION

##################################################################################################

......

 

Once these setting changes are made, the UNIX based CONNX Data Server must be restarted.

 

On the client side, the CONNX data dictionary must be configured to use SSL to connect to the server.

 

If you have an existing data dictionary, and you want to enable SSL for one or more databases in the CDD, there is also a "Use TLS/SSL" checkbox at the database panel for any database that supports SSL.

Use this checkbox to enable/disable SSL for the specified database connection.

 

image19.jpg

 

It is possible to configure some databases in the CDD to use SSL, and others without SSL.