NAME

Crypt::NSS - Perl bindings to NSS (Netscape Security Services)

DESCRIPTION

This module provides an interface to Netscape Security Services (NSS) which is a set of libraries that Firefox, Thunderbird and several other applications uses for crypto, secure sockets, signing mail etc. NSS provides support for SSL v2 and v3, TLS, PKCS #5, PKCS #7, PKCS #11, PKCS #12, S/MIME, X.509 v3 certificates, and other security standards.

Currently this module only implements the SSL bits but in the future (patches welcome!!) most of NSS will be available via this module.

INTERFACE

MODULE IMPORT

During import no initalization is normally done. It's however possible to do this by passing either config_dir => PATH or init. If the later, import checks for the environment NSS_CONFIG_DIR and sets the config dir to that if set.

CLASS METHODS

config_dir ( ) : string

Returns the path where to look for cert8.db, key3.db and secmod.db databases upon initialization.

set_config_dir ( $directory : string ) : boolean

Specify the path to the directory where the cert8.db, key3.db and secmod.db databases can be found. It's only allowed to set the directory prior to initialization or this method with return a false value.

is_initialized ( ) : boolean

Returns whether the underlying NSS library has been initialized or not.

initialize ( ) : integer

Initializes NSS. Returns 0 on success or an error code on failure. Initialization is usually done when importing this module by passing either config_dir => $path or init to use the default config directory (.).

shutdown ( )

Closes the certificate and key databases.

ISSUES THAT ARE NOT BUGS

Forking and outgoing sockets

If your script forks after it has done initialization and you try to open a outgoing socket, ie. one that connects to a remote host, you'll get failures like "-12215 MD5 digest function failed".

This is not a bug in this module and is a recent fix in the underlying NSS library. The PKCS#11 standard says that after a fork all PKCS#11 modules must be reinitialized again. So if you want to fork, make sure you don't initialize NSS in the parent process.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=331096

BUGS AND LIMITATIONS

Please report any bugs or feature requests to bug-nss@rt.cpan.org, or through the web interface at http://rt.cpan.org.

SUPPORT

Commercial support is available from Versed Solutions. Contact author for details.

AUTHOR

Claes Jakobsson, Versed Solutions <claesjac@cpan.org>

LICENCE AND COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2008, Versed Solutions <info@versed.se>. All rights reserved.

This software is released under the MIT license cited below.

The "MIT" License

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.