Question

I’m trying to run the SSL examples from boost::asio and I’m getting an “Invalid argument” exception when I run them. I’m on Linux x86_64.

http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_46_1/doc/html/boost_asio/example/ssl/client.cpp

http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_46_1/doc/html/boost_asio/example/ssl/server.cpp

Compiled with:

g++ server.cpp -o server -lboost_system -lssl
g++ client.cpp -o client -lboost_system -lssl

Run like:

$ ./server 
Usage: server <port>
$ ./server 10000
Exception: Invalid argument
$ ./server 1000
Exception: Permission denied
$ sudo ./server 1000
Exception: Invalid argument

Not sure what the problem is 🙁
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Answer 1

OK, for anyone finding this in the future, you need to create your certificates and sign them appropriately.
Here are the commands for linux:

//Generate a private key

openssl genrsa -des3 -out server.key 1024

//Generate Certificate signing request

openssl req -new -key server.key -out server.csr

//Sign certificate with private key

openssl x509 -req -days 3650 -in server.csr -signkey server.key -out server.crt

//Remove password requirement (needed for example)

cp server.key server.key.secure
openssl rsa -in server.key.secure -out server.key

//Generate dhparam file

openssl dhparam -out dh512.pem 512

Once you’ve done that, you need to change the filenames in server.cpp and client.cpp.

server.cpp

context_.use_certificate_chain_file("server.crt"); 
context_.use_private_key_file("server.key", boost::asio::ssl::context::pem);
context_.use_tmp_dh_file("dh512.pem");

client.cpp

ctx.load_verify_file("server.crt");

Then it should all work!