18.9. Secure TCP/IP Connections with SSL

To require the client to supply a trusted certificate, place certificates of the root certificate authorities ( CA s) you trust in a file in the data directory, set the parameter ssl_ca_file in postgresql.conf to the new file name, and add the authentication option clientcert=1 to the appropriate hostssl line(s) in pg_hba.conf . A certificate will then be requested from the client during SSL connection startup. (See Section 33.18 for a description of how to set up certificates on the client.) The server will verify that the client's certificate is signed by one of the trusted certificate authorities.

Intermediate certificates that chain up to existing root certificates can also appear in the file root.crt if you wish to avoid storing them on clients (assuming the root and intermediate certificates were created with v3_ca extensions). Certificate Revocation List (CRL) entries are also checked if the parameter ssl_crl_file is set.

The clientcert authentication option is available for all authentication methods, but only in pg_hba.conf lines specified as hostssl . When clientcert is not specified or is set to 0, the server will still verify any presented client certificates against its CA file, if one is configured - but it will not insist that a client certificate be presented.

If you are setting up client certificates, you may wish to use the cert authentication method, so that the certificates control user authentication as well as providing connection security. See Section 20.3.9 for details. (It is not necessary to specify clientcert=1 explicitly when using the cert authentication method.)

Table 18.2 summarizes the files that are relevant to the SSL setup on the server. (The shown file names are default or typical names. The locally configured names could be different.)

The server reads these files at server start and whenever the server configuration is reloaded. On Windows systems, they are also re-read whenever a new backend process is spawned for a new client connection.

If an error in these files is detected at server start, the server will refuse to start. But if an error is detected during a configuration reload, the files are ignored and the old SSL configuration continues to be used. On Windows systems, if an error in these files is detected at backend start, that backend will be unable to establish an SSL connection. In all these cases, the error condition is reported in the server log.

To create a simple self-signed certificate for the server, valid for 365 days, use the following OpenSSL command, replacing dbhost.yourdomain.com with the server's host name:

openssl req -new -x509 -days 365 -nodes -text -out server.crt \
  -keyout server.key -subj "/CN=dbhost.yourdomain.com"

Then do:

chmod og-rwx server.key

because the server will reject the file if its permissions are more liberal than this. For more details on how to create your server private key and certificate, refer to the OpenSSL documentation.

While a self-signed certificate can be used for testing, a certificate signed by a certificate authority ( CA ) (usually an enterprise-wide root CA ) should be used in production.

To create a server certificate whose identity can be validated by clients, first create a certificate signing request ( CSR ) and a public/private key file:

openssl req -new -nodes -text -out root.csr \
  -keyout root.key -subj "/CN=root.yourdomain.com"
chmod og-rwx root.key

Then, sign the request with the key to create a root certificate authority (using the default OpenSSL configuration file location on Linux ):

openssl x509 -req -in root.csr -text -days 3650 \
  -extfile /etc/ssl/openssl.cnf -extensions v3_ca \
  -signkey root.key -out root.crt

Finally, create a server certificate signed by the new root certificate authority:

openssl req -new -nodes -text -out server.csr \
  -keyout server.key -subj "/CN=dbhost.yourdomain.com"
chmod og-rwx server.key

openssl x509 -req -in server.csr -text -days 365 \
  -CA root.crt -CAkey root.key -CAcreateserial \
  -out server.crt

server.crt and server.key should be stored on the server, and root.crt should be stored on the client so the client can verify that the server's leaf certificate was signed by its trusted root certificate. root.key should be stored offline for use in creating future certificates.

It is also possible to create a chain of trust that includes intermediate certificates:

# root
openssl req -new -nodes -text -out root.csr \
  -keyout root.key -subj "/CN=root.yourdomain.com"
chmod og-rwx root.key
openssl x509 -req -in root.csr -text -days 3650 \
  -extfile /etc/ssl/openssl.cnf -extensions v3_ca \
  -signkey root.key -out root.crt

# intermediate
openssl req -new -nodes -text -out intermediate.csr \
  -keyout intermediate.key -subj "/CN=intermediate.yourdomain.com"
chmod og-rwx intermediate.key
openssl x509 -req -in intermediate.csr -text -days 1825 \
  -extfile /etc/ssl/openssl.cnf -extensions v3_ca \
  -CA root.crt -CAkey root.key -CAcreateserial \
  -out intermediate.crt

# leaf
openssl req -new -nodes -text -out server.csr \
  -keyout server.key -subj "/CN=dbhost.yourdomain.com"
chmod og-rwx server.key
openssl x509 -req -in server.csr -text -days 365 \
  -CA intermediate.crt -CAkey intermediate.key -CAcreateserial \
  -out server.crt

server.crt and intermediate.crt should be concatenated into a certificate file bundle and stored on the server. server.key should also be stored on the server. root.crt should be stored on the client so the client can verify that the server's leaf certificate was signed by a chain of certificates linked to its trusted root certificate. root.key and intermediate.key should be stored offline for use in creating future certificates.