[openssl-users] Correct way to free SSL_CTX* ?

[murugesh pitchaiah]

Hi Pratyush,

Whenever you set a certificate to CTX, the reference count will get incremented:

CRYPTO_add(&x->references, 1, CRYPTO_LOCK_X509);

In addition, inside your application any usage of a certificate may
cause this reference count to be incremented.

As you can seen in man page - one call to ctx free will just decrement
the reference count by one. Only the count is 0, it starts freeing
whole memory. So you need to watch for these reference counts, to
avoid leak. Also when you fix leak properly hope the back trace should
be gone.

X509_free - can also be used to decrement the reference count.

Regards,
Murugesh P.

On 1/29/18, pratyush parimal <pratyush.parimal at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm trying to write an application in which I create an instance of
> SSL_CTX* using SSL_CTX_new(), and set the following things in it:
>
> (1) An EVP_PKEY* :
> 1a> created with PEM_read_bio_PrivateKey().
> 1b> set in the ctx using SSL_CTX_use_PrivateKey().
>
> (2) A number of X509* instances (cuz chained certs) :
> 2a> all created with PEM_read_bio_X509().
> 2b> set in the ctx using SSL_CTX_use_certificate() or
> SSL_CTX_add_extra_chain_cert().
>
> At the end, I use SSL_CTX_free() to free up the ctx. According to the man
> page for SSL_CTX_free():
>
> "SSL_CTX_free() decrements the reference count of ctx, and removes the
> SSL_CTX object pointed to by ctx and frees up the allocated memory if the
> the reference count has reached 0.
>        It also calls the free()ing procedures for indirectly affected
> items, if applicable: the session cache, the list of ciphers, the list of
> Client CAs, the certificates and keys. "
>
> ... which tells me that freeing the SSL_CTX should free up its memory as
> well as the things I set inside of it (unless I'm interpreting it super
> wrong?) like " ... certificates and keys".
> The problem is, when run my application under valgrind, I keep seeing
> memory leaks for both steps (1a) and (2a).
>
> I tried to get rid of them, by using EVP_PKEY_free() after I'm done setting
> in step (1b). This works, and the leak for step (1a) goes away.
> When I try to do the same for step (2), i.e. calling X509_free() after
> every successful "set" call, I get a coredump (backtrace is attached:
> bt_1.txt), coming out of SSL_CTX_free, suggesting that I did something
> wrong.
>
>
> Which brings me to my question, does anyone know the correct way to free
> memory in SSL_CTX ? Or, what's wrong with my steps? The application doesn't
> even perform SSL yet, I'm just trying to create/destroy SSL_CTX objects
> without leaks first. Any help would be appreciated!
>
>
> Thanks in advance,
> -Pratyush.
>