dropping Of cert.pem file
This document represents a proposed Change. As part of the Changes process, proposals are publicly announced in order to receive community feedback. This proposal will only be implemented if approved by the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee.
Summary
In order to increase the performance of OpenSSL by default using directory-hash format we need to drop the /etc/pki/tls/cert.pem file to prevent it from being loaded by default. This also includes the certificate bundles in /etc/pki/tls/certs/ folder(ca-certificates.crt, ca-bundle.crt).
Owner
- Name: František Krenželok
- Email: fkrenzel@redhat.com
Current status
- Targeted release: Fedora Linux 42
- Last updated: 2024-12-17
- Announced
- Discussion thread
- FESCo issue: #3293
- Tracker bug: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
- Release notes tracker: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
Detailed Description
In order to improve the loading time of OpenSSL, a directory-hash support was added to ca-certificates. In order for OpenSSL to use the directory-hash format by default we need to stop it from trying to load /etc/pki/tls/cert.pem by deleting it. This also applies to the certificate bundles in /etc/pki/tls/certs/ folder(ca-certificates.crt, ca-bundle.crt).
Feedback
change of the OpenSSL certificate path (Alternative)
pros:
- the cert.pem file could remain in the location.
cons:
- downstream patch (it's a build time option).
- change of the location to a non-standard place.
Benefit to Fedora
Applications using OpenSSL(possibly other libraries as well) will benefit from much faster initialization of OpenSSL.
Scope
- Other developers:
Any package loading the root certificates from any of the following bundles:
/etc/pki/tls/cert.pem
/etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-certificates.crt
/etc/pki/tls/ca-bundle.crt
needs to preferably use the defaults of the library or if they must, use the /etc/pki/ca-trust/extracted/pem/tls-ca-bundle.pem file instead.
- Release engineering: #Releng issue number
- Policies and guidelines: N/A (not needed for this Change)
- Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)
- Alignment with the Fedora Strategy: neither does nor doesn't
Upgrade/compatibility impact
Once this change is integrated, the packages/software using any of the following files /etc/pki/tls/cert.pem /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-certificates.crt /etc/pki/tls/ca-bundle.crt as a root certificate bundle file might encounter connectivity issues.
How To Test
Target behavior: OpenSSL initialization takes less time when the file isn't present compared to it being there.
1. The following will create a symlink for testing after the change has been integrated(i.e. the .../tls/cert.pem file is missing)
ln -s /etc/pki/ca-trust/extracted/pem/tls-ca-bundle.pem /etc/pki/tls/cert.pem
2. Test the time of OpenSSL initialization or a package using it with and without the aforementioned symlink. (If there is no difference for package then it is most likely due to OpenSSL not being configured to search for certs in default location)
User Experience
Packages using a OpenSSL will have faster initialization time.
Dependencies
Any package using /etc/pki/tls/cert.pem,/etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-certificates.crt or /etc/pki/tls/ca-bundle.crt file are affected. It is required that the maintainers change this so that user experience is not compromised.
Contingency Plan
- Contingency mechanism: We will postpone the change if majority or critical package owners will be unable to make appropriate changes.
- Contingency deadline: before end of beta freeze(2025-02-18).
- Blocks release? The feature doesn't block release.
Documentation
The change is documented as a part of ca-certificates package changelog.
Release Notes
The /etc/pki/tls/cert.pem certificate file has been Removed.