envoyproxy/envoy

Custom transport socket failure reasons

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#9,255 opened on Dec 6, 2019

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area/tlsenhancementhelp wanted

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Description

The error messages returned by BoringSSL are often fairly vague, making it hard to debug TLS issues. For specific deployments it would likely be possible for operators to be able to better describe the failure.

For example, if given access to the TLS context (CA/local cert used), the peer cert and the BoringSSL failure string, a few lines of code might be sufficient to provide a better error message, e.g. something like "staging peer cert cannot be used with production CA".

I imagine this could be implemented as a list of error details providers that could be configured as part of the tls context, allowing for statically registered implementations.

cc @lizan

Contributor guide

Research direction
Study Envoy's transport socket and TLS error handling. Investigate how to add a configurable list of error detail providers that receive TLS context and peer cert to generate custom failure messages.
Tech stack
cpp
Domain
backendsecurity
Issue type
Feature
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-2 days
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
Stale
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
Clear
Prerequisites
C++TLSBoringSSLEnvoy
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
25