moved SSLCERTS into the docs/ directory

1 files changed, 39 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/docs/SSLCERTS b/docs/SSLCERTS
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+                      Peer SSL Certificate Verification
+                      =================================
+
+Starting in 7.10, libcurl performs peer SSL certificate verification by
+default. This is done by installing a default CA cert bundle on 'make install'
+(or similar), that CA bundle package is used by default on operations against
+SSL servers.
+
+Alas, if you communicate with HTTPS servers using certificates that are signed
+by CAs present in the bundle, you will not notice any changed behavior and you
+will seamlessly get a higher security level on your SSL connections since you
+can be sure that the remote server really is the one it claims to be.
+
+If the remote server uses a self-signed certificate, or if you don't install
+curl's CA cert bundle or if it uses a certificate signed by a CA that isn't
+included in the bundle, then you need to do one of the following:
+
+ 1. Tell libcurl to *not* verify the peer. With libcurl you disable with with
+    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, FALSE);
+
+    With the curl command tool, you disable this with -k/--insecure.
+
+ 2. Get a CA certificate that can verify the remote server and use the proper
+    option to point out this CA cert for verification when connecting. For
+    libcurl hackers: curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_CAPATH, capath);
+
+    With the curl command tool: --cacert [file]
+
+Neglecting to use one of the above menthods when dealing with a server using a
+certficate that isn't signed by one of the certficates in the installed CA
+cert bundle, will cause SSL to report an error ("certificate verify failed")
+during the handshake and SSL will then refuse further communication with that
+server.
+
+This procedure has been deemed The Right Thing even though it adds this extra
+trouble for some users, since it adds security to a majority of the SSL
+connections that previously weren't really secure. It turned out many people
+were using previous versions of curl/libcurl without realizing the need for
+the CA cert options to get truly secure SSL connections.