SECURE_CONNECTION v18

The SECURE_CONNECTION procedure upgrades an existing, open connection to use SSL/TLS encryption. This is typically used to initiate "StartTLS" style security on an unencrypted session.

SECURE_CONNECTION (
  c IN OUT CONNECTION
);

Parameters

c

The connection handle of the active session, originally returned by OPEN_CONNECTION. Because this is an IN OUT parameter, the internal state of the connection handle is updated to reflect the new secure status.

Notes

• Prerequisites: To successfully negotiate a secure handshake, the connection must have been initialized with valid ssl_cert_path parameter during the OPEN_CONNECTION call.

• Handshake timing: This procedure performs the SSL/TLS handshake. If the remote host does not support encryption or the certificates are invalid, the procedure will raise an exception.

• Operational flow: This is commonly used in protocols like SMTP where the initial connection is plaintext, and the session is upgraded to a secure channel before sensitive data (like credentials) is transmitted.

• Impact of timeout: The handshake is subject to the tx_timeout value defined at the start of the connection.

Example

DECLARE
  c      UTL_TCP.CONNECTION;
BEGIN   
  c := UTL_TCP.OPEN_CONNECTION('mail-arts.enterprisedb.com', 465, ssl_cert_path => '/etc/pki/tls/certs/sendmail.pem');
  UTL_TCP.SECURE_CONNECTION (c);                                                                                
  UTL_TCP.CLOSE_CONNECTION(c);
END;