opensslcnf not set (on rhel at least)

[Erik Ordway]

ssl key generation is dependent on finding the openssl.cnf key on the OS. When installing Mahara on RHEL/Unbreakable Linux the name/value of opensslcnf/'/etc/pki/tls/openssl.cnf' does not get set in the 'config' table of the database. The prevents the key generation needed for extra-site networking. It is possible that on other linux variants the file can be found without this but not on this combination. This value does get set on a moodle 1.9 install which led me to figuring this out.

mahara 1.3.4

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.5 (Tikanga) run from Oracle yum repository

PHP 5.1.6 (cli) (built: Nov 29 2010 17:42:31)
Copyright (c) 1997-2006 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.1.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2006 Zend Technologies

Postgresql 8.4.5

[Erik Ordway (ordwaye)]

In talking with some others the value may have been set in moodle because moodle was installed before rhel locked down access to the file. If I installed moodle now it would probably not work.

[François Marier (fmarier)]

Ok, I'm a bit confused here...

What exactly should be done in Mahara to resolve your problem on RHEL?

[Erik Ordway (ordwaye)]

The error when the key generation fails should say that it can not find the systems openssl.cnf . Even better there probably should be an warning durning install that says networking will not work till you locate the openssl.cnf .

[François Marier (fmarier)]

Ok, we can certainly provide a better error mesage.

What did you have to change on your system to make it work? Did you have to change a path somewhere in the Mahara config or the source code?

[Erik Ordway (ordwaye)]

Setting this name/value of opensslcnf/'/etc/pki/tls/openssl.cnf' in the 'config' table of the database. It is also possible that setting it in config.php might also work but I can not tested it.

Basically RHEL hides the openssl.cnf so that user processes (like apache) can not find it and can only use it they now the exact path. I do not understand why this is but it is.

[Robert Lyon (robertl-9)]

I note there is a line
 $opensslcnf = get_config('opensslcnf');

in htdocs/api/xmlrpc/lib.php

But the opensslcnf variable does not get set on install nor does it seem to be listed in the comments of
htdocs/config.php
htdocs/lib/config-defaults.php

Should it be added to the
htdocs/lib/config-defaults.php

It's instructions should be added so people know it exists and what it does

[Aaron Wells (u-aaronw)]

Hi Robert,

It looks like this config option was added in Mahara 1.3, and never altered after that.

I agree, it should be added to config-defaults.php

Cheers,
Aaron

[Robert Lyon (robertl-9)]

added patch to include this option in config-defaults.php
https://reviews.mahara.org/#/c/2720/

[Mahara Bot (dev-mahara)]

Reviewed: https://reviews.mahara.org/2720
Committed: http://gitorious.org/mahara/mahara/commit/1cb01ce2085930a34757da7042c2bdb39618f485
Submitter: Son Nguyen (<email address hidden>)
Branch: master

commit 1cb01ce2085930a34757da7042c2bdb39618f485
Author: Robert Lyon <email address hidden>
Date: Wed Nov 20 09:36:54 2013 +1300

Updating config defaults with opensslcnf info (bug #707161)

- option added v1.3 but not documented in the list of defaults that
are available

Change-Id: Ib6010e502ffdefe00d86856674fc54362fa41faa
Signed-off-by: Robert Lyon <email address hidden>