Sun Microsystems Netscape Enterprise Server, Administrator'S Manual

Page: 74 / 532

Configuring Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
74 Netscape Enterprise Server Administrator’s Guide
Your server can perform encryption with a number of different encryption
functions, called
ciphers . Some ciphers are more resistant to cracking than
others. During an SSL connection, the client and the server agree to use the
strongest cipher they can both use for communication. For more information
regarding ciphers, see
Managing Servers with Netscape Console.
To set these encryption preferences, perform the following steps:
1.
Access the Enterprise Administration Server and choose the Preferences tab.
2.
Click the Encryption Prefs link.
3.
Check the SSL versions you want your server to communicate with. The
latest and most secure version is SSL version 3, but a few older clients use
only SSL version 2. You will probably want to enable your server to use
both versions.
4.
Check the ciphers you want your server to use. The ciphers are listed for
each version of SSL. Some ciphers are more secure, or stronger, than others.
Generally speaking, the more bits a cipher uses during encryption, the
harder it is to decrypt the data. Ciphers are described after this list.
5.
Click OK. Make sure you restart your server.
When a client initiates an SSL connection with a server, the client lets the server
know what ciphers it prefers to use to encrypt information. In any two-way
encryption process, both parties must use the same ciphers. Since there are a
number of ciphers available, you should consider enabling all ciphers.
You can choose ciphers from both the SSL 2 and SSL 3 protocols. Unless you
have a compelling reason why you don’t want to use a specific cipher, you
should check them all.
For more information, see “The Encryption Preferences Page,” in the online
help.
Setting Stronger Ciphers
You can set stronger ciphers via the Stronger Ciphers option on the Server
Manager Preferences tab in both domestic and export versions of the server.