Sending and Receiving

Basic IO setup

By default, s2n-tls sends and receives data using a provided file descriptor (usually a socket) and the read/write system calls. The file descriptor can be set with s2n_connection_set_fd(), or separate read and write file descriptors can be set with s2n_connection_set_read_fd() and s2n_connection_set_write_fd(). The provided file descriptor should be active and connected.

In general the application is free to configure the file descriptor as preferred, including socket options. s2n-tls itself sets a few socket options:

  • If available, TCP_QUICKACK is used during the TLS handshake
  • If available and enabled via s2n_connection_use_corked_io(), TCP_CORK is used during the TLS handshake. TCP_NOPUSH or TCP_NODELAY may be used if TCP_CORK is not available.

Important Note: If the read end of the pipe is closed unexpectedly, writing to the pipe will raise a SIGPIPE signal. s2n-tls does NOT handle SIGPIPE. A SIGPIPE signal will cause the process to terminate unless it is handled or ignored by the application. See the signal man page for instructions on how to handle C signals, or simply ignore the SIGPIPE signal by calling signal(SIGPIPE, SIG_IGN) before calling any s2n-tls IO methods.

Blocking or Non-Blocking?

s2n-tls supports both blocking and non-blocking I/O.

  • In blocking mode, each s2n-tls I/O function will not return until it has completed the requested IO operation.
  • In non-blocking mode, s2n-tls I/O functions will immediately return, even if the socket couldn't send or receive all the requested data. In this case, the I/O function will return S2N_FAILURE, and s2n_error_get_type() will return S2N_ERR_T_BLOCKED. The I/O operation will have to be called again in order to send or receive the remaining requested data.

Some s2n-tls I/O functions take a blocked argument. If an I/O function returns an S2N_ERR_T_BLOCKED error, the blocked argument will be set to a s2n_blocked_status value, indicating what s2n-tls is currently blocked on. Note that unless an I/O function returns S2N_FAILURE with an S2N_ERR_T_BLOCKED error, the blocked argument is meaningless, and should not be used in any application logic.

Servers in particular usually prefer non-blocking mode. In blocking mode, a single connection blocks the thread while waiting for more IO. In non-blocking mode, multiple connections can make progress by returning control while waiting for more IO using methods like poll or select.

To use s2n-tls in non-blocking mode, set the underlying file descriptors as non-blocking. For example:

int flags = fcntl(fd, F_GETFL, 0);
if (flags < 0) return S2N_FAILURE;
if (fcntl(fd, F_SETFL, flags | O_NONBLOCK) < 0) return S2N_FAILURE;

Note: If an application requires non-blocking IO, it likely also requires self-service blinding. See Blinding.

Errors and Alerts

If the peer sends an alert, the next call to a read IO method will report S2N_FAILURE and s2n_error_get_type() will return S2N_ERR_T_ALERT. The specific alert received is available by calling s2n_connection_get_alert().

In TLS1.3, all alerts are fatal. s2n-tls also treats all alerts as fatal in earlier versions of TLS by default. s2n_config_set_alert_behavior() can be called to force s2n-tls to treat pre-TLS1.3 warning alerts as not fatal, but that behavior is not recommended unless required for compatibility. In the past, attacks against TLS have involved manipulating the alert level to disguise fatal alerts as warnings.

If s2n-tls encounters a fatal error, the next call to a write IO method will send a close_notify alert to the peer. Except for a few exceptions, s2n-tls does not send specific alerts in order to avoid leaking information that could be used for a sidechannel attack. To ensure that the alert is sent, s2n_shutdown() should be called after an error.

Performing the TLS Handshake

Before application data can be sent or received, an application must perform a handshake to establish a TLS connection with the peer.

To perform the handshake, call s2n_negotiate() until it either returns S2N_SUCCESS or returns S2N_FAILURE without a S2N_ERR_T_BLOCKED error.

For an example of how to perform a basic handshake, see examples/s2n_negotiate.c

Application Data

After the TLS handshake, an application can send and receive encrypted data.

Although most s2n-tls APIs are not thread-safe, s2n_send() and s2n_recv() may be called simultaneously from two different threads. This means that an application may have one thread calling s2n_send() and one thread calling s2n_recv(), but NOT multiple threads calling s2n_recv() or multiple threads calling s2n_send().

Even if an application only intends to send data or only intends to receive data, it should implement both send and receive in order to handle alerts and post-handshake TLS control messages like session tickets.

Sending Application Data

s2n_send() and its variants encrypt and send application data to the peer. The sending methods return the number of bytes written and may indicate a partial write. Partial writes are possible not just for non-blocking I/O, but also for connections aborted while active.

A single call to s2n_send() may involve multiple system calls to write the provided application data. s2n-tls breaks the application data into fixed-sized records before encryption, then calls write for each record. See the record size documentation for how record size may impact performance.

In non-blocking mode, s2n_send() will send data from the provided buffer and return the number of bytes sent, as long as the socket was able to send at least 1 byte. If no bytes could be sent on the socket, s2n_send() will return S2N_FAILURE, and s2n_error_get_type() will return S2N_ERR_T_BLOCKED. To ensure that all the provided data gets sent, applications should continue calling s2n_send() until the return values across all calls have added up to the length of the data, or until s2n_send() returns an S2N_ERR_T_BLOCKED error. After an S2N_ERR_T_BLOCKED error is returned, applications should call s2n_send() again only after the socket is able to send more data. This can be determined by using methods like poll or select.

Unlike OpenSSL, repeated calls to s2n_send() should not duplicate the original parameters, but should update the inputs per the indication of size written. s2n-tls will attempt to sanity check that the inputs are properly updated between calls. Because of those sanity checks, a zero-length send call cannot be used as a flushing mechanism.

s2n_sendv_with_offset() behaves like s2n_send(), but supports vectorized buffers. The offset input should be updated between calls to reflect the data already written.

s2n_sendv() also supports vectorized buffers, but assumes an offset of 0. Because of this assumption, a caller would have to make sure that the input vectors are updated to account for a partial write. Therefore s2n_sendv_with_offset() is preferred.

For examples of how to send data of length data_size with s2n_send() or s2n_sendv_with_offset(), see examples/s2n_send.c

Receiving Application Data

s2n_recv() reads and decrypts application data from the peer, copying it into the application-provided output buffer. It returns the number of bytes read, and may indicate a partial read even if blocking IO is used. It returns "0" to indicate that the peer has shutdown the connection.

By default, s2n_recv() will return after reading a single TLS record. s2n_recv() can be called repeatedly to read multiple records. To allow s2n_recv() to read multiple records with a single call, use s2n_config_set_recv_multi_record().

In non-blocking mode, s2n_recv() will read data into the provided buffer and return the number of bytes read, as long as at least 1 byte was read from the socket. If no bytes could be read from the socket, s2n_recv() will return S2N_FAILURE, and s2n_error_get_type() will return S2N_ERR_T_BLOCKED. To ensure that all data on the socket is properly received, applications should continue calling s2n_recv() until it returns an S2N_ERR_T_BLOCKED error. After an S2N_ERR_T_BLOCKED error is returned, applications should call s2n_recv() again only after the socket has received more data. This can be determined by using methods like poll or select.

Unlike OpenSSL, repeated calls to s2n_recv() should not duplicate the original parameters, but should update the inputs per the indication of size read.

For an example of how to read all the data sent by the peer into one buffer, see s2n_example_recv() in examples/s2n_recv.c

For an example of how to echo any data sent by the peer, see s2n_example_recv_echo() in examples/s2n_recv.c

s2n_peek() can be used to check if more application data may be returned from s2n_recv() without performing another read from the file descriptor. This is useful when using select() on the underlying s2n-tls file descriptor, because a call to s2n_recv() may read more data into s2n-tls's internal buffer than was requested or can fit into the application-provided output buffer. This extra application data will be returned by the next call to s2n_recv(), but select() will be unable to tell the application that there is more data available and that s2n_recv() should be called again. An application can solve this problem by calling s2n_peek() to determine if s2n_recv() needs to be called again.

Closing the Connection

s2n_shutdown() attempts a graceful closure at the TLS layer. It does not close the underlying transport. The call may block on either reading or writing.

s2n_shutdown() should be called after an error in order to ensure that s2n-tls sends an alert to notify the peer of the failure.

s2n_shutdown() will discard any application data received from the peer. This can lead to data truncation, so s2n_shutdown_send() may be preferred for TLS1.3 connections where the peer continues sending after the application initiates shutdown. See Closing the connection for writes below.

Because s2n_shutdown() attempts a graceful shutdown, it will not return success unless a close_notify alert is successfully both sent and received. As a result, s2n_shutdown() may fail when interacting with a non-conformant TLS implementation or if called on a connection in a bad state.

Once s2n_shutdown() is complete:

  • The s2n_connection handle cannot be used for reading or writing.
  • The underlying transport can be closed, most likely via shutdown() or close().
  • The s2n_connection handle can be freed via s2n_connection_free() or reused via s2n_connection_wipe()

Closing the connection for writes

TLS1.3 supports closing the write side of a TLS connection while leaving the read side unaffected. This indicates "end-of-data" to the peer without preventing future reads. This feature is usually referred to as "half-close".

s2n-tls offers the s2n_shutdown_send() method to close the write side of a connection. Unlike s2n_shutdown(), it does not wait for the peer to respond with a close_notify alert and does not discard any incoming application data. An application can continue to call s2n_recv() after a call to s2n_shutdown_send().

s2n_shutdown_send() may still be called for earlier TLS versions, but most TLS implementations will react by immediately discarding any pending writes and closing the connection.

If s2n_shutdown_send() is used, the application should still call s2n_shutdown() or wait for s2n_recv() to return 0 to indicate end-of-data before cleaning up the connection or closing the read side of the underlying transport.

Custom IO Callbacks

By default, s2n-tls sends and receives data using a provided file descriptor (usually a socket) and the read/write system calls. To change this default behavior, an application can implement custom send and receive methods using s2n_connection_set_recv_cb() and s2n_connection_set_send_cb(). The application can pass inputs (such as a file descriptor or destination buffer) to the custom IO methods by using s2n_connection_set_recv_ctx() and s2n_connection_set_send_ctx(). s2n-tls will call the custom IO methods with the custom context instead of calling the default implementation.

The custom IO methods may send or receive less than the requested length. They should return the number of bytes sent/received, or set errno and return an error code < 0. s2n-tls will interpret errno set to EWOULDBLOCK or EAGAIN as indicating a retriable blocking error, and set s2n_errno and the s2n_blocked_status appropriately. s2n-tls will interpret a return value of 0 as a closed connection.