wolfSSL and QUIC

wolfSSL supports QUIC implementations. It does not offer an implementation of the QUIC protocol.

What does that mean?

TLS works on top of the Internet's TCP protocol stack. The TCP is shipped as part of the Operating System and accessible via system calls and APIs. TCP itself is not secured by TLS, only the data sent via it is protected. TCP does not have to know anything about TLS.

QUIC, on the other hand, is always protected by TLS. A QUIC implementation does always need an implementation of the TLS protocol, specifically TLSv1.3. It does this in new ways and TLS implementations need to accommodate these. Those specifics have been added to wolfSSL.

wolfSSL Configuration

QUIC support is enabled in the common autoconf style via:

> ./configure --enable-quic

this drags in some very basic features. To have everything necessary for a QUIC protocol implementation like ngtcp2, one would do:

 ./configure --enable-quic --enable-session-ticket --enable-earlydata --enable-psk

Note: for now, quic is not enabled via --enable-all and always needs to be specified.

ngtcp2

One of the recommended QUIC implementations is ngtpc2. It now supports use of wolfSSL as its "crypto" library. Configuring ngtcp2 with wolfSSL is done via:

> ./configure --with-wolfssl

Built this way, one gets a complete, standard-conform QUIC library.

HTTP/3 != QUIC

HTTP/3 is designed for the QUIC protocol. But QUIC does not know anything about HTTP/3. nghttp3 is an implementation of HTTP/3 that works with ngtcp2.

A complete HTTP/3 choice would be nghttp3 + ngtcp2 + wolfSSL plus the UDP of the operating system. The examples provided in ngtcp2 build exactly that and give you clients and servers that illustrate the use of the APIs.

curl - all in one

The above configuration has also been added to curl and its library libcurl. Which will, once it leaves the experimental stage, make QUIC available in your favourite command line tool and for all applications built on top of libcurl.

why?

Why all these different blocks?

The separation of HTTP/3 and QUIC is natural when you think about the relationship between TCP and HTTP/1.1. Like TCP, QUIC can and will carry other protocols. HTTP/3 is only the first one. Most likely 'DNS over QUIC' (DoQ) is the next popular, replacing DoH.

The separation of QUIC's "crypto" parts from its other protocol enabling functions is a matter of security. In its experimental beginnings, QUIC had its own security design. With the emerging TLSv1.3 and all it improvements, plus decades of experience, it seemed rather unwise to have something separate in QUIC.

Therefore, the complete TLSv1.3 handshake became part of the QUIC protocol, with some restrictions and simplifications (UDP based QUIC does not accommodate broken TCP middle boxes). With the need for a complete TLSv1.3 stack, QUIC implementors happily make use of existing TLS libraries.

wolfSSL API

The exposed API carries all methods that the quictls/openssl introduces. This seems to become the standard, since other *SLL libraries have picked those up or are about to. The methods are all in the wolfSSL_ prefix. There are some additional methods, which are covered below.

Core Interworking

At the base is the struct WOLFSSL_QUIC_METHOD which carries four callbacks:

set_encryption_secrets(): to forward generated secrets.
add_handshake_data(): to forward Handshake messages.
flush_flight(): to tell the QUIC protocol handler to flush any buffered data.
send_alert(): to forward SSL alerts.

A QUIC protocol handler installs these via wolfSSL_CTX_set_quic_method() or wolfSSL_set_quic_method(). When CRYPTO messages arrive from the peer, those are added via wolfSSL_provide_quic_data() to the WOLFSSL* instance:

  DATA ---recv+decrypt---+
                         v 
            wolfSSL_provide_quic_data(ssl, ...)
            wolfSSL_do_handshake(ssl);
                  +-> add_handshake_data_callback(REPLY)
                          |
  REPLY <--encrypt+send---+

The wolfSSL instance performs the common TLSv1.3 handshake processing with the significant change that it does not encrypt or decrypt messages itself. It computes all the secrets and MACs as usual, however.

Encryption and Decryption is done by the QUIC protocol handler. Which is why it gets access to the secrets at the different encryption levels: initial(no encryption), handshake, application and earlydata.

For sending data, the level to use for encryption is a call parameter in add_handshake_data(). For received data, the level to use for decryption can be interrogated via wolfSSL_quic_read_level().

When the handshake is done, any additional CRYPTO messages are received in the same way, only wolfSSL_process_quic_post_handshake() is invoked to process them.

Crypto Support

At the basic level, there are:

wolfSSL_quic_get_aead(): to get the AEAD cipher negotiated
wolfSSL_quic_get_md(): to get the MD negotiated
wolfSSL_quic_get_hp(): to get the EVP_CIPHER for header protection
wolfSSL_quic_get_aead_tag_len(): the get the tag length of the negotiated AEAD cipher

In addition to that, the wolfSSL QUIC API offers the following functions:

wolfSSL_quic_crypt_new(): to setup a WOLFSSL_EVP_CIPHER_CTX for en- or decryption with AEAD cipher, key and iv.
wolfSSL_quic_aead_encrypt(): to encrypt with such a context and params
wolfSSL_quic_aead_decrypt(): to decrypt with such a context and params

and for key generation wolfSSL_quic_hkdf_extract(), wolfSSL_quic_hkdf_expand() and wolfSSL_quic_hkdf().

Tests

Tests have been added in tests/quic.c to run as part of unit.tests. Those go from basic checks on providing data and receiving secrets to complete handshakes between SSL client and server instances. These handshakes are done plain, with session resumption and with early data.

These tests exchange the handshake messages between the SSL instances unencrypted, verifying their sequence and contents. They also verify that client and sever did indeed generate identical secrets for the different encryption levels.

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