Creating Secure Sessions

Clients can optionally create secure sessions that require trusted server certificates to establish a TLS/SSL-encrypted client connection to a Solace event broker. When a secure session is created, SMF information is transported using TLS/SSL over TCP instead of plain-text over TCP.

To create a secure session, a number of TLS/SSL-specific session properties must be specified as discussed below. In addition, the event broker that the secure session will connect to must be properly configured, and the appropriate server certificate must be in place. For information on configuring an event broker to allow for secure connections, see TLS / SSL Service Configuration.

Related Samples

For an example of how to create and connect secure sessions, see the SecureSession sample for the appropriate messaging API. Also, you can use secure sessions on other samples by prepending “tcps:” to the hostname used in the sample (see Host).

TLS/SSL-Specific Properties

To create a secure session, the following session properties must configured.

TLS/SSL Secure Session Properties

Property Use Description

Host

Solace .NET API: SessionProperties.Host

Each host entry for a TLS/SSL connection requires an appropriate TLS/SSL protocol, and a specific TLS/SSL port number can optionally be specified.

If no port number is specified, the default port of 55443 is used.

For information on configuring hosts, see Host.

SSL Excluded Protocols

Solace .NET API: SessionProperties.SSLExcludedProtocols

A comma-separated list of encryption protocols that may not be used for secure connections. Possible values are:

  • TLS v1.1 (TLSv1.1)
  • TLS v1.2 (TLSv1.2)
  • TLS v1.3 (TLSv1.3)

See the preference for the specific values for SSL v3.0, TLS v1.0, TLS, v1.1, TLS v1.2, AND TLS v1.3. The default list is empty, meaning that any encryption protocol can be used (no protocols are excluded).

This property has replaced the deprecated property SSL Protocol. Solace recommends switching to the new property as soon as possible. You may not use SSL Exclude Protocols and SSL Protocol together.
Configuring Minimum and Maximum SSL Protocols

Solace .NET API: MinimumTlsProtocolVersion and MaximumTlsProtocolVersion

These properties specify the oldest (minimum) and most recent (maximum) TLS protocols supported. Possible values are:

  • TLS v1.1 (TLSv1.1)
  • TLS v1.2 (TLSv1.2)
  • TLS v1.3 (TLSv1.3)

The default minimum TLS protocol is TLS v1.2.

The minimum and maximum TLS protocol version properties cannot be combined with the deprecated SSL excluded protocols properties.

SSL Certificate Validation

Solace .NET API: SessionProperties.SSLValidateCertificate

Indicates that whether the API should validate server certificates with the trusted certificates in the trust store.

The trust store is a directory on a server that contains the trusted certificates. The default value for this property is True.

SSL Certificate Date Validation

Solace .NET API: SessionProperties.SSLValidateCertificateDate

Indicates whether the session connection should fail when an expired certificate or a certificate not yet in use is received. The default is True.

 

No certificate date validation is performed if the SSL certificate validation property is set to False.

 
SSL Certificate Host Validation (SSL Server Certificate Validation Using Subject-Alternative Name )

Solace .NET API: SessionProperties.SSLValidateCertificateHost

Indicates if the session connection validates the subject alternative name in the X.509 certificate. If the X.509 certificate does not contain the subject alternative name section, the common name in the subject field of the X.509 certificate is verified against the HOST property. The default and recommended setting is True.

No certificate host validation is performed if the SSL certificate validation property is set to False.

 

SSL Cipher Suites

Solace .NET API: SessionProperties.SSLCipherSuites

A comma-separated list of cipher suites, listed in order of importance, to use to negotiate with the event broker.

A cipher suite is a combination of cryptographic parameters that define the security algorithms and key sizes used for authentication, key agreement, encryption, and integrity protection.

For a listing of the supported cipher suites in order of preference, see Solace Messaging APIs for the appropriate messaging API. By default, no cipher suites are listed, which indicates that all supported ciphers should be considered.

If your application negotiates a TLS 1.3 connection, you cannot select which cipher suites to negotiate with the event broker and these properties are ignored.

SSL Trusted Store Directory

Solace .NET API: SessionProperties.SSLTrustStoreDir

The directory where trusted certificates are stored.

The network directory where the trusted certificates are stored.

SSL Trust Store (file-based)

Solace .NET API: N/A

Not applicable in the Solace .NET API.

SSL Trust Store (in-memory)

Solace .NET API: SessionProperties.SSLTrustStore

Indicates the trusted certificates that are available as in-memory trust store.

The trusted certificates (in X509CertificateCollection format) to use for in-memory usage. This property is mandatory if the SSLValidateCertificate property is set to True. This property cannot be used in conjunction with SSLTrustStoreDir property.

SSL Trust Store Password

Solace .NET API: N/A

Specifies the password of the trust store.

SSL Trust Store Format

Solace .NET API: N/A

Indicates the format used by the trust store provided for the SSL trust store property.

SSL Connection Downgrade To

Solace .NET API: SessionProperties.SSLConnectionDowngradeTo

Indicates that the SSL connection should be downgraded following client authentication.

 

Allowed transport protocols for SSL connection downgrade To property are: "PLAIN_TEXT". This property is optional.