The most known authentication method of TLS are certificates. The PKIX [PKIX] public key infrastructure is daily used by anyone using a browser today. GnuTLS provides a simple API to verify the X.509 certificates as in [PKIX].
The key exchange algorithms supported by certificate authentication are shown in Table 4.1.
| Key exchange | Description |
|---|---|
| RSA | The RSA algorithm is used to encrypt a key and send it to the peer. The certificate must allow the key to be used for encryption. |
| DHE_RSA | The RSA algorithm is used to sign ephemeral Diffie-Hellman parameters which are sent to the peer. The key in the certificate must allow the key to be used for signing. Note that key exchange algorithms which use ephemeral Diffie-Hellman parameters, offer perfect forward secrecy. That means that even if the private key used for signing is compromised, it cannot be used to reveal past session data. |
| ECDHE_RSA | The RSA algorithm is used to sign ephemeral elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman parameters which are sent to the peer. The key in the certificate must allow the key to be used for signing. It also offers perfect forward secrecy. That means that even if the private key used for signing is compromised, it cannot be used to reveal past session data. |
| DHE_DSS | The DSA algorithm is used to sign ephemeral Diffie-Hellman parameters which are sent to the peer. The certificate must contain DSA parameters to use this key exchange algorithm. DSA is the algorithm of the Digital Signature Standard (DSS). |
| ECDHE_ECDSA | The Elliptic curve DSA algorithm is used to sign ephemeral elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman parameters which are sent to the peer. The certificate must contain ECDSA parameters (i.e., EC and marked for signing) to use this key exchange algorithm. |
Table 4.1: Supported key exchange algorithms.
| • X.509 certificates | ||
| • OpenPGP certificates | ||
| • Raw public-keys | ||
| • Advanced certificate verification | ||
| • Digital signatures |