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BetterTLS

BetterTLS is a collection of test suites for TLS clients. Find out more at bettertls.com.

This Repository

The docs/ directory contains the pages hosted at bettertls.com. These pages contain most of the detailed information about what these test suites are and what their results mean.

Inside the test-suites directory you'll find code for the tests themselves and a harness for running those tests. Check out the sections below for information on running those tests yourself and extending the BetterTLS code to run the tests against additional TLS implementations.

Running tests

Tests are built and run using Go, with minimum version 1.16.

Inside the test-suites directory of this repo you can run go run ./cmd/bettertls as the entrypoint to most functionality. Use --help to learn more about supported sub-commands and use --help on each sub-command to learn more about supported parameters.

$ go run ./cmd/bettertls --help
Usage: /tmp/go-build1035531161/b001/exe/bettertls <server|get-test> ...
Supported sub-commands: server, get-test, run-tests, generate-manifests, show-results

$ go run ./cmd/bettertls run-tests --help
Usage of run-tests:
  -implementation string
    	Implementation to test.
  -outputDir string
    	Directory to which test results will be written. (default ".")
  -suite string
    	Run only the given suite instead of all suites.
  -testCase int
    	Run only the given test case in the suite instead of all tests. Requires --suite to be sepecified as well. (default -1)

To run all tests against all implementations and all test suites, use the run-tests subcommand, e.g. go run ./cmd/bettertls run-tests. You can run tests for a single implementation or single test suite with flags. For example:

$ go run ./cmd/bettertls run-tests --implementation curl --suite pathbuilding
curl/pathbuilding 100% |█████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████| (81/81, 227 tests/s)        
Implementation: curl
Version: curl 7.68.0 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.68.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1f zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.7 libidn2/2.2.0 libpsl/0.21.0 (+libidn2/2.2.0) libssh/0.9.3/openssl/zlib nghttp2/1.40.0 librtmp/2.3
Release-Date: 2020-01-08
Protocols: dict file ftp ftps gopher http https imap imaps ldap ldaps pop3 pop3s rtmp rtsp scp sftp smb smbs smtp smtps telnet tftp 
Features: AsynchDNS brotli GSS-API HTTP2 HTTPS-proxy IDN IPv6 Kerberos Largefile libz NTLM NTLM_WB PSL SPNEGO SSL TLS-SRP UnixSockets

Suite: pathbuilding
  Supported Features: INVALID_REASON_EXPIRED, INVALID_REASON_NAME_CONSTRAINTS, INVALID_REASON_BAD_EKU, INVALID_REASON_MISSING_BASIC_CONSTRAINTS, INVALID_REASON_NOT_A_CA, INVALID_REASON_DEPRECATED_CRYPTO, 
  Unsupported Features: BRANCHING, 
  Passed: 20
  Skipped: 61
  Failures: 0

The test results are saved to curl_results.json.

Running tests in a browser

Browsers can be tested by running the test server:

go run ./cmd/bettertls server

You can then browse to http://localhost:8080 which will start the test suites. When it is complete, the textbox will display a JSON dump of the test results. You can save this output to a file and use the commands below to interpret the results.

Viewing test results

The summary of test results is printed when tests are run. You can also print the summary using the show-results subcommand:

$ go run ./cmd/bettertls show-results --resultsFile ../docs/results/go_results.json
Implementation: go
Version: go1.18beta1
Suite: pathbuilding
  Supported Features: BRANCHING, INVALID_REASON_EXPIRED, INVALID_REASON_NAME_CONSTRAINTS, INVALID_REASON_BAD_EKU, INVALID_REASON_MISSING_BASIC_CONSTRAINTS, INVALID_REASON_NOT_A_CA, INVALID_REASON_DEPRECATED_CRYPTO, 
  Unsupported Features: 
  Passed: 80
  Skipped: 0
  Failures: 1
    False positives: 1

Suite: nameconstraints
  Supported Features: NAME_CONSTRAINTS, 
  Unsupported Features: 
  Passed: 8750
  Skipped: 0
  Failures: 0

You can pass the --json flag to this subcommand to get a JSON-formatted summary, which includes a listing of specifically which tests passed/failed.

$ go run ./cmd/bettertls show-results --resultsFile ../docs/results/go_results.json --json | jq .suiteSummary.pathbuilding.falsePositiveTests
[
  57
]

To get more information about a test (and in particular the certificates used in the test), use the get-test subcommand:

$ go run ./cmd/bettertls get-test --suite pathbuilding --testId 57 | jq .
{
  "suite": "pathbuilding",
  "testId": 57,
  "definition": {
    "ExplicitTestCase": {
      "TrustGraph": {},
      "SrcNode": "Trust Anchor",
      "DstNode": "EE",
      "InvalidEdges": [
        {
          "Source": "Trust Anchor",
          "Destination": "A"
        },
        {
          "Source": "C",
          "Destination": "B"
        }
      ],
      "InvalidReason": 0,
      "ExpectFailure": false,
      "Comment": "Should be able to find an alternate path through a more complicated tree."
    },
    "InvalidReason": 3
  },
  "expectedResult": "PASS",
  "certificates": [
    "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",
    "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",
    "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",
    "MIICCTCCAa+gAwIBAgISASXF6lU+pfqmo9xcL4fYakJUMAoGCCqGSM49BAMCMFMxFjAUBgNVBAoTDWJldHRlcnRscy5jb20xCjAIBgNVBAMTAUMxLTArBgNVBAUTJDA3YWEzOGFlLTM0ZmMtNGU3ZC05ZWZmLTU1NDlhNjFiMDc3MTAeFw0yMTEyMjIxOTM2MTNaFw0yMjEyMjQxOTM2MTNaMFMxFjAUBgNVBAoTDWJldHRlcnRscy5jb20xCjAIBgNVBAMTAUExLTArBgNVBAUTJGRjNjI0ZTIwLWE2YmItNGYyYS1hYmU2LTBmMzMwYzQ0NzQ1MTBZMBMGByqGSM49AgEGCCqGSM49AwEHA0IABFshv7uX/SqP0SsksuPZMYD/Lb1s1ogupVcMEOAXBOwHeSbXZryJaxzJAf+VcUAlDEY5a+MMsJ87/8BHg/Mahf6jYzBhMA4GA1UdDwEB/wQEAwICBDAPBgNVHRMBAf8EBTADAQH/MB0GA1UdDgQWBBRjFLJd+LqXOY7GAfWH+rx5a98ZsTAfBgNVHSMEGDAWgBSogEGB8+QJnjAeqTXPo7mcXrMauDAKBggqhkjOPQQDAgNIADBFAiEAvJKYp/xd6dcoiZ9+uRsnScvlkXeB8s5lbXsKafFDLtACIEi0WeS1zL2rNW9vDPeEPkiSkOD874s3HV243KUK/+PF",
    "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",
    "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",
    "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"
  ]
}

To get more information about multiple tests (e.g. all false-negative tests), you might do something like this:

$ for testID in $(go run ./cmd/bettertls show-results --resultsFile ../docs/results/go_results.json --json | jq .suiteSummary.nameconstraints.falseNegativeTests.[]) ; do go run ./cmd/bettertls get-test --suite nameconstraints --testId $testID | jq . ; done

Testing additional TLS implementations

Executing tests with the embedded test runner

To add a new implementation to be tested, you will need to implement the impltests.ImplementationRunner interface. The easiest way to implement this interface to follow the pattern of one of the existing implementations, which invokes the TLS implementation as a separate process for each test case.

When running tests, the Go executable runs an HTTPS server that will present certificates for each test case. The easiest way to test a new implementation is to create a script or executable that will attempt to establish a TLS connection to the server, given a port/hostname and trusted CA as parameters. Check out the curl implementation as an example.

If it makes more sense to test your implementation by passing in the certificates (rather than establishing a TLS connection to a remote service), check out the PKI.js for an example of how certificates get passed to that executable.

Once you have create your implementation, add it to the Runners map. You will then be able to run go run ./cmd/bettertls run-tests --implementation my_impl.

Exporting tests to run outside of the BetterTLS executor

For many use cases it might be easier to export tests from BetterTLS so that you can run tests in your implementations own test harness. The bettertls executable has an export-tests command which will write all tests in a JSON format that you can use in your own project.

If you have checked out the bettertls repository then you can run:

go run ./cmd/bettertls export-tests --out tests.json

Or without checking out the repository:

GOBIN=$PWD go install github.com/Netflix/bettertls/test-suites/cmd/bettertls@latest
./bettertls export-tests --out tests.json

The following is an abbreviated example of what gets exported:

{
  "betterTlsRevision": "939077295c05d36c53f1f386fc3ec55167360f3a",
  "trustRoot": "MII...",
  "suites": {
    "nameconstraints": {
      "features": ["NAME_CONSTRAINTS", "VALIDATE_DNS", "VALIDATE_IP"],
      "sanityCheckTestCase": 0,
      "featureTestCases": {
        "NAME_CONSTRAINTS": [1],
        "VALIDATE_DNS": [2,3],
        "VALIDATE_IP": [4,5]
      },
      "testCases": [
        {
          "id": 0,
          "suite": "nameconstraints",
          "certificates": [
            "MII...",
            ...
          ],
          "hostname": "test.localhost",
          "requiredFeatures": [],
          "expected": "ACCEPT",
          "failureIsWarning": false
        },
        ...
      ]
    }
  }
}

Top-Level Export

TestSuite

TestCase

A note about the "failureIsWarning" tests

There are a number of tests, especially in the nameconstraints test suite, which have "failureIsWarning" on tests with ambiguous expected results. This mostly stems from inconsistency about whether 1) implementations use the subject Common Name (CN) for hostname verification (and therefore apply name constraints checks against it), and 2) whether implementations only check nameconstraints against the hostname being verified (they should be checking any SANs in the certificate for violations, but many implementations do not).

For example, a test might have the common name bad.example.com as the subject CN and test.localhost as the only DNS SAN. If the issuing CA has localhost as the whitelisted DNS tree, implementations would reject this chain if they apply name constraints checks against the CN. This test (with hostname="test.localhost") has expected="ACCEPT" but failureIsWarning=true for this reason.

Modern implementations should not be using the subject CN for hostname verification, so test cases where the expected hostname is not forbidden by name constraints but is only present in the CN (and no SANs) have expected="REJECT" but failureIsWarning=true.

Finally, a test might have SANs which violate name constraints but are irrelevant to the hostname being verified. For example, a leaf certificate with a DNS SAN of test.localhost and an IP SAN of 192.168.0.1 under a issuer CA with name constraints DNS=localhost and IP=127.0.0.0/24 would have an expected FAILURE result because of the IP address name constraint violation. However, this test will have failureIsWarning=true when verifying hostname="test.localhost".

In short, unexpected results on such tests suggest the implementation does not have what we consider to be the "most correct" outcome, but it is not necessarily wrong.

Feature descriptions

When an implementation is run with the bettertls test executor, supported features are detected during testing. Tests which require unsupported features are then automatically skipped.

If you are exporting tests from BetterTLS for use in your project, you can use the featureTestCases tests to dynamically detect supported features in your project, but it will probably make more sense to look at the descriptions below and determine which features you expect to be supported. You can then skip any tests which require features not in your list.

nameconstraints

• NAME_CONSTRAINTS: Whether the name constraints extension is supported at all (i.e. are intermediate CA certificates with a critical name constraints extension accepted).
• VALIDATE_DNS: Does the implementation perform hostname verification when hostname is a DNS name?
• VALIDATE_IP: Does the implementation perform hostname verification (that is, against IP address SANs) when hostname is a stringified IP address?

pathbuilding

• BRANCHING: Does the implementation support path building at all? That is, when presented with an array of certificates that are not a linear chain, does the implementation discover a chain within it to a trust anchor?
• INVALID_REASON_xxx: Does the implementation reject certificates for a given reason. Check out the "Path Building" section on the bettertls website for more information on each of the "invalid reasons".