Mutual TLS client and server in NodeJS

Nicobon [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]

A better and more complete example of Mutual TLS authentication in NodeJS for HTTPS, WebSockets and gRPC

• Server and Clients in HTTP1/HTTP2, WebSockets and gRPC
• Certificate generation using OpenSSL or Forge
• Documentation for clients (Windows, Linux, OSX, Android)
• Docker image for testing
• No library bloat

Getting Started

Install

npm install

Generate Certificates and Private Keys

# Interactive
npm run generate:keys-openssl

# Automatic (Primarily for testing)
npm run generate:keys-forge

Connect

npm run start:server

# Connect to the above locally via HTTP2
npm run start:client2

# Connect via WebSockets
npm run start:clientwss

Docker

Docker image:

docker pull ghcr.io/benedridge/mutual-tls/mutual-tls:latest
docker run --name mutual_tls -p 127.0.0.1:8443:8443 -d ghcr.io/benedridge/mutual-tls/mutual-tls:latest

Keys and Certificates

The generator scripts will create certificates and private keys in the keys directory as follows

• Certificates:

  • CA.crt
  • CLIENT.crt
  • SERVER.crt

• Private Keys (DO NO EXPOSE OR USE IN PROD):

  • CA_key.pem
  • CLIENT_key.pem
  • SERVER_key.pem

These certificates and keys need to be imported and loaded into the browser/OS keychains:

Browser and OS Connectivity

Browse to: localhost:8443 and you should be requested to supply a certificate or should connect automatically if the CA and Client certificates have been imported to your browser/OS.

OSX

OSX typically requires the relevant keys to be imported into the keychain:

See security --help for additional options

security import CA.crt -k ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain

security import CLIENT.crt -k ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain
security import CLIENT_key.pem -k ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain

security import SERVER.crt -k ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain

Safari and Chrome should work once keys have been trusted and key preferences set to hostname.

Firefox has it's own keystore that doesn't like PEM formatted keys and prefers p12 format. So you will need to import the CLIENT.p12 file using the password from the generator output in the console.

See below: about:preferences#privacy then view certificates

Linux

CA import for Ubuntu

1. Rename CA.crt and copy to /usr/local/share/ca-certificates/
2. chmod 644 CA.cr
3. Run sudo update-ca-certificates

Android

• Transfer the CA.crt and CLIENT.p12 file to your device
• Settings -> Security -> Device Administrator and Credentials -> Install from SD card etc.

Windows (WIP)

certutil -enterprise -f -v -AddStore "Root" <Cert File path>

See: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/certutil

Resources

• https://intown.biz/2016/11/22/node-client-auth/
• https://engineering.circle.com/https-authorized-certs-with-node-js-315e548354a2
• https://gist.github.com/pcan/e384fcad2a83e3ce20f9a4c33f4a13ae

Attributions

Social media image: Nicobon [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]