Angus Robertson

This fix is now in SVN and the overnight zip, property X509PubKeyTB in TX509Base will get the certificate public in DER binary format as TBytes, from where it may be converted to hex or base64, and used for Raw Public Key certificate validation. At least assuming the raw key distributed is the DER format. It seems comparing a SHA256 digest is common, rather than a long string. Angus

This improvement is now in SVN and the overnight zip, there is a new TOAOption of OAopAuthBasic that causes Basic Authentication to be used instead of sending the client ID and secret as parameters, Microsoft accepts both methods. Angus

I explained how in the third line: nStatCode := RestRequest(httpPOST, 'https://xx', False, astrJSON.Text); You can also look at the new OverbyteIcsSnippets sample in ICS v9 which has working examples of many ICS functions, just click a button and watch it happen, although you are almost there already. But do use the debugs options, you'd then have seen the modified Json being sent, and the problem should have been glaringly obvious. Angus

Are you intending to nest Json here, using a parameter like this will create a new Json item named raw with your Json as the value. Except when adding raw parameters like Json, you need a third parameter True so that the item is not escape encoded. If your Json is complete, you can ignore RestParams and just add it as RawParameters which is the last argument in RestRequest. The component has built in logging, set DebugLevel to DebugBody, assign the onHttpRestProg event, and write everything that arrives to your memo, Angus

Sorry, single line Windows errors in isolation are no-use. I asked you to reproduce the error in the new IcsSslMultiWebServ sample and send me the log it generates. Note that both KeepAliveTimeSec and KeepAliveTimeXferSec close the remote client connection, the latter after five minutes by default. If you want to keep an idle remote client open for more than five minutes, you have to set both to zero. Neither will stop the server. Angus

ICS v9 has a lot of low level stability changes, many for Win64 applications, in particular errors during close and within finally statements, where inherited functions were sometimes skipped. I only built my own public servers as Win64 about a year ago, which means that is when Win64 got a lot of extra live testing. And I'm still uncertain about the OpenSSL DLLs in some very rare circumstances with Win64. Angus

It seems the industry has come up with RFC7250 Raw Public Key to allow authentication of TLS connections without using X509 certificates and trusted certificate chains, which seems aimed at your type of LAN application. You are really doing the same thing, but still sending a self signed certificate you ignore. RPK uses TLS extensions, which are supported by the next OpenSSL release 3.2 currently in alpha testing. I'll look at supporting RPK when it arrives. Meanwhile, I'll add a TX509Base method to get a public key this week. Angus

KeepAliveTimeSec only effects remote clients not the server itself. Are you saying a remote client connection was closed after five minutes, or the web server itself stopped after that time? There is no server timeout or close down. Please private email me the complete log file from the ICS sample showing this activity, not just little extracts. Angus

Stopping and disabling the Windows Update service worked in the past, but Microsoft may have other apps that monitor it being stopped. Angus

KeepAliveTimeSec is an idle timeout, from when the last data was received or sent on the client connection. It is part of http/1.1 that leaves the connection open after a request, waiting for further requests and defaults to 10 seconds in all ICS web servers, XferSecs is five minutes. It's not changed in years, except to support Int64 ticks. Is this Windows Server or MacOS? Why FMX for Windows? ICS v9 has the first new FMX samples in 10 years, I suggest you build the FMX sample IcsSslMultiWebServ and see if you can reproduce the problem, if so I'll look into it. Angus

When you say 'big performance regressions', if I read your article correctly you mean some cryptographic functions are slower in new versions, due to the provider layer that hides internal structures from being damaged by applications and allows flexibility for developers. The question is how many times a second are those operations performed in a typical web client or server, so what is the actual penalty? Or is it once or twice a connection, so microseconds? Angus

My public web servers have the line: Client.KeepAliveTimeSec := 120 ; // 13 July 2009 increase session timeout and serve thousands of users a day without halting since that line was added. I don't use KeepAliveTimeXferSec which is only effective during requests, Both versions close the client, not the server. Which ICS version are you using. Angus

The OverbyteIcsOAuthFormVcl unit is very much optional, it is new in this release and not even built for Delphi 7 since it does not have the browser windows. But a couple of samples will complain. SHDocVW is not in any ICS packages. We only provide very limited for support for very old compilers, except Delphi 2007 which is widely used, my XE license has expired so I can not use it, only some of the later XE versions. Angus

Thanks, I'll look at this when I get back to ICS next week. Note, there is an ICS forum for future support, but you don't need to repost this topic. Angus

It is no secret that many or most components developers are beta testers under NDA, how else are all their components ready for each new release, or in the olde days on the component companion CD included with the final release. This benefits everyone involved, because new versions of Delphi can be used for old projects immediately, rather than waiting weeks for developers to buy the new version, etc. What has changed in recent years is beta testing being offered openly for paying customers, rather than by invitation only, and blogging about the next release, so it is now all more obvious. Angus

I assume you mean the files OverbyteIcsDXeRun.dpr and OverbyteIcsDXeRun.dproj? SHDocVW is not in either of those files so your compiler must have added it. TWebBrowse did keep changing in early versions of Delphi, ICS has several painful conditionals to try and make it work. You can try removing OverbyteIcsOAuthFormVcl, and refeences to it, that might help. Angus

Component libraries can be published that have been tested on beta versions, provided they don't reveal any features of the beta or use any new features. The latest ICS v9 release has packages for Delphi 12, but did not need any changes for D12 other than VER360. Several other libraries are also available from GetIt for the beta. Angus

The X509PublicKey property returns a PEVP_PKEY pointer which can be passed for processing to numerous OpenSSL functions, PEM_write_bio_PUBKEY might do what you need, it is used in the PublicKeySaveToText method, but that needs a private key which you don't have. PEM_write_bio_PUBKEY returns base64 ASCII text, the same as you'd find in a PEM file for a public or private key, which is probably what you have already, it probably has the top and tail headers... Angus

ICS exposes the two hashes for the certificate, which are small and easy to check, but this would only work if there is only a single self signed certificate on the network, if there are more than one all signed by the same private key, like a CA, then checking the public key is the only solution. But no-one else has ever needed it. It is only a couple of lines of code using OpenSSL functions, but not this week. Angus

Sorry, no ICS applications need to use or display a raw public key, so there are no methods available to get it as a string. The TX509Base property X509PublicKey returns a pointer to the internal OpenSSL key, but there are no ICS functions to convert this to a string. There are some Jose functions for JSON Web Keys but these need private keys, not public. You can see the use of GetPKeyRawText in the OverbyteIcsPemtool sample, it prints all fields from a certificate, including the public key in hex, but you would have to parse the result to get the hex only. As I said before, applications normally check certificates, not keys. Angus

Checking the public key is exactly how chain verification works. Your self signed certificates should really be signed by your own certificate authority, or ideally an intermediate issued by your own CA. You distribute the CA certificate to your PCs and install it in the Windows and/or PEM store, and all normal certificate chain validation just works, for any application. The OverbyteIcsX509CertsTst sample will create certificates signed by your own CA, or intermediate, I use them for testing on my LAN. If you want to check the server certificate chain yourself, use the OnSslHandshakeDone event. Angus

The OverbyteIcsHttpRestTst sample illustrates SSL/TLS certificate validation, if that is what you mean by key data. You don't have to write code or make decisions, it's all handled automatically by ICS, if you set property CertVerMethod to CertVerBundle or CertVerWinStore. ICS has built in root bundles for certificate validation. Property SslReportChain will report the chain for your log, while SslRevocation will cause an OCSP server to be checked as well. Angus

The comment you quote from the source code is from four years ago, and relates to code contributed and tested by an ICS user OAS. I can not test it since I don't have an NT domain. I can only suggest you search that unit and OverbyteIcsSspi and OverbyteIcsNtlSSp for comments by OAS who made the changes. Angus

If I interpret your short hand correctly, you now have one global SslContext and a second one in the thread. Unless you actually initialise the global SslContext or attach it to a component and make an SSL request, it will not load the OpenSSL DLLs, so your wasteful problem of loading and unloading the DLLs several times a minute will remain. Please read my previous messages where I have explained how to do this properly, I'm not going to keep repeating myself. Angus

There would only have been C++ fixes if someone else found a problem and told me, I don't write or test C++. You should try ICS v9 which is released now and report any issues, ideally with fixes. Angus