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From: Si, Evan <[email protected]>
To: Ewan Young <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Clarify that ssl_groups is for any key exchange groups
Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2026 17:29:30 +0000
Message-ID: <[email protected]> (raw)

On 6/2/26, 11:32 PM, "Ewan Young" <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>
> +1 for the idea. (I'm fairly new here, so please take my comments with
> a grain of salt.)

Thanks for the review!

> 1. The comment just above the renamed call in be_tls_init() still
> says "set up ephemeral DH and ECDH keys". Maybe it should be
> updated to match?

Right, that makes sense. I did a larger grep and updated comments where I found stale references to curves and (EC)DH.

> 2. The SSLECDHCurve variable (and its "GUC variable for default ECDH
> curve" comment in be-secure.c) still uses the old naming. I wasn't
> sure if that was left out intentionally to keep the patch small --
> if not, would it make sense to rename it too, for consistency with
> the initialize_groups() rename?

This also seems reasonable. I didn't find usage of this extern outside of Postgres itself in the wild from a brief search.

Attached a revision.

Evan



Attachments:

  [application/octet-stream] v2-0001-Clarify-that-ssl_groups-is-for-any-key-exchange-g.patch (6.7K, 2-v2-0001-Clarify-that-ssl_groups-is-for-any-key-exchange-g.patch)
  download | inline diff:
From 090fca6246c166170d6b5ab819a4680712745124 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Evan Si <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2026 18:13:35 +0000
Subject: [PATCH v2] Clarify that ssl_groups is for any key exchange groups

The current wording seems to suggest that the parameter is only meant for DH.
This introduces minor wording tweaks across comments, short_desc, and the docs to
reflect that it accepts any group.
---
 doc/src/sgml/config.sgml                  | 12 ++++++------
 src/backend/libpq/be-secure-openssl.c     | 16 ++++++++--------
 src/backend/libpq/be-secure.c             |  4 ++--
 src/backend/utils/misc/guc_parameters.dat |  4 ++--
 src/include/libpq/libpq.h                 |  2 +-
 src/test/ssl/t/SSL/Server.pm              |  2 +-
 6 files changed, 20 insertions(+), 20 deletions(-)

diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/config.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/config.sgml
index cebae4b6d1b..8a94ecd6221 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/config.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/config.sgml
@@ -1573,11 +1573,11 @@ include_dir 'conf.d'
       </term>
       <listitem>
        <para>
-        Specifies the name of the curve to use in <acronym>ECDH</acronym> key
-        exchange.  It needs to be supported by all clients that connect.
-        Multiple curves can be specified by using a colon-separated list.
-        It does not need to be the same curve used by the server's Elliptic
-        Curve key.  This parameter can only be set in the
+        Specifies the named group to use for <acronym>TLS</acronym> key
+        exchange.  It needs to be supported by all clients that
+        connect.  Multiple groups can be specified by using a colon-separated
+        list.  It does not need to match the key type used by the server
+        certificate.  This parameter can only be set in the
         <filename>postgresql.conf</filename> file or on the server command line.
         The default is <literal>X25519:prime256v1</literal>.
        </para>
@@ -1592,7 +1592,7 @@ include_dir 'conf.d'
        </note>
 
        <para>
-        <productname>OpenSSL</productname> names for the most common curves
+        <productname>OpenSSL</productname> names for the most common groups
         are:
         <literal>prime256v1</literal> (NIST P-256),
         <literal>secp384r1</literal> (NIST P-384),
diff --git a/src/backend/libpq/be-secure-openssl.c b/src/backend/libpq/be-secure-openssl.c
index 7890e6c2de2..6172726bfbc 100644
--- a/src/backend/libpq/be-secure-openssl.c
+++ b/src/backend/libpq/be-secure-openssl.c
@@ -95,7 +95,7 @@ static int	alpn_cb(SSL *ssl,
 					unsigned int inlen,
 					void *userdata);
 static bool initialize_dh(SSL_CTX *context, bool isServerStart);
-static bool initialize_ecdh(SSL_CTX *context, bool isServerStart);
+static bool initialize_groups(SSL_CTX *context, bool isServerStart);
 static const char *SSLerrmessageExt(unsigned long ecode, const char *replacement);
 static const char *SSLerrmessage(unsigned long ecode);
 static bool init_host_context(HostsLine *host, bool isServerStart);
@@ -513,10 +513,10 @@ be_tls_init(bool isServerStart)
 	SSL_CTX_set_options(context, SSL_OP_NO_CLIENT_RENEGOTIATION);
 #endif
 
-	/* set up ephemeral DH and ECDH keys */
+	/* set up DH parameters and TLS named groups */
 	if (!initialize_dh(context, isServerStart))
 		goto error;
-	if (!initialize_ecdh(context, isServerStart))
+	if (!initialize_groups(context, isServerStart))
 		goto error;
 
 	/* set up the allowed cipher list for TLSv1.2 and below */
@@ -2106,14 +2106,14 @@ initialize_dh(SSL_CTX *context, bool isServerStart)
 }
 
 /*
- * Set ECDH parameters for generating ephemeral Elliptic Curve DH
- * keys.  This is much simpler than the DH parameters, as we just
- * need to provide the name of the curve to OpenSSL.
+ * Set the group(s) to use for TLS key exchange.  This is much simpler
+ * than the static DH parameters, as we just need to provide the
+ * colon-separated list of group names to OpenSSL.
  */
 static bool
-initialize_ecdh(SSL_CTX *context, bool isServerStart)
+initialize_groups(SSL_CTX *context, bool isServerStart)
 {
-	if (SSL_CTX_set1_groups_list(context, SSLECDHCurve) != 1)
+	if (SSL_CTX_set1_groups_list(context, SSLNamedGroups) != 1)
 	{
 		/*
 		 * OpenSSL 3.3.0 introduced proper error messages for group parsing
diff --git a/src/backend/libpq/be-secure.c b/src/backend/libpq/be-secure.c
index 86ceea72e64..d69106e6545 100644
--- a/src/backend/libpq/be-secure.c
+++ b/src/backend/libpq/be-secure.c
@@ -52,8 +52,8 @@ bool		ssl_loaded_verify_locations = false;
 char	   *SSLCipherSuites = NULL;
 char	   *SSLCipherList = NULL;
 
-/* GUC variable for default ECDH curve. */
-char	   *SSLECDHCurve;
+/* GUC variable for the named groups to use for TLS key exchange. */
+char	   *SSLNamedGroups;
 
 /* GUC variable: if false, prefer client ciphers */
 bool		SSLPreferServerCiphers;
diff --git a/src/backend/utils/misc/guc_parameters.dat b/src/backend/utils/misc/guc_parameters.dat
index afaa058b046..e5e01ce1cd6 100644
--- a/src/backend/utils/misc/guc_parameters.dat
+++ b/src/backend/utils/misc/guc_parameters.dat
@@ -2790,10 +2790,10 @@
 },
 
 { name => 'ssl_groups', type => 'string', context => 'PGC_SIGHUP', group => 'CONN_AUTH_SSL',
-  short_desc => 'Sets the group(s) to use for Diffie-Hellman key exchange.',
+  short_desc => 'Sets the named groups to use for TLS key exchange.',
   long_desc => 'Multiple groups can be specified using a colon-separated list.',
   flags => 'GUC_SUPERUSER_ONLY',
-  variable => 'SSLECDHCurve',
+  variable => 'SSLNamedGroups',
   boot_val => 'DEFAULT_SSL_GROUPS',
 },
 
diff --git a/src/include/libpq/libpq.h b/src/include/libpq/libpq.h
index d15073a0a93..906ac742b83 100644
--- a/src/include/libpq/libpq.h
+++ b/src/include/libpq/libpq.h
@@ -116,7 +116,7 @@ extern PGDLLIMPORT char *ssl_dh_params_file;
 extern PGDLLIMPORT bool ssl_sni;
 extern PGDLLIMPORT char *SSLCipherSuites;
 extern PGDLLIMPORT char *SSLCipherList;
-extern PGDLLIMPORT char *SSLECDHCurve;
+extern PGDLLIMPORT char *SSLNamedGroups;
 extern PGDLLIMPORT bool SSLPreferServerCiphers;
 #ifdef USE_SSL
 extern PGDLLIMPORT bool ssl_loaded_verify_locations;
diff --git a/src/test/ssl/t/SSL/Server.pm b/src/test/ssl/t/SSL/Server.pm
index 4400a432f42..624d36ff7ea 100644
--- a/src/test/ssl/t/SSL/Server.pm
+++ b/src/test/ssl/t/SSL/Server.pm
@@ -322,7 +322,7 @@ sub switch_server_cert
 	ok(unlink($node->data_dir . '/sslconfig.conf'));
 	$node->append_conf('sslconfig.conf', 'ssl=on');
 	$node->append_conf('sslconfig.conf', $backend->set_server_cert(\%params));
-	# use lists of ECDH curves and cipher suites for syntax testing
+	# use lists of TLS groups and cipher suites for syntax testing
 	$node->append_conf('sslconfig.conf', 'ssl_groups=prime256v1:secp521r1');
 	$node->append_conf('sslconfig.conf',
 		'ssl_tls13_ciphers=TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256');
-- 
2.47.3



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