NSS and SSL Error Codes

The local system was configured to support the cipher suites permitted for domestic use. The remote system was configured to support only the cipher suites permitted for export use.

The remote system was configured to support the cipher suites permitted for domestic use. The local system was configured to support only the cipher suites permitted for export use.

The local and remote systems share no cipher suites in common. This can be due to a misconfiguration at either end. It can be due to a server being misconfigured to use a non-RSA certificate with the RSA key exchange algorithm.

This error has many potential causes; for example: 

Certificate or key not found in database. 

Certificate not marked trusted in database and Certificate's issuer not marked trusted in database. 

Wrong password for key database. 

Missing database.

A certificate was received from the remote system and was passed to the certificate authentication callback function provided by the local application. That callback function returned SECFailure, and the bad certificate callback function either was not configured or did not choose to override the error code returned by the certificate authentication callback function.

This error code should occur only on sockets that are acting as servers. It is a generic error, used when none of the other more specific error codes defined in this file applies.

This error code should occur only on sockets that are acting as clients. It is a generic error, used when none of the other more specific error codes defined in this file applies.

The operation encountered a certificate that was not one of the well known certificate types handled by the certificate library.

On a client socket, this means the remote server has attempted to negotiate the use of a version of SSL that is not supported by the NSS library, probably an invalid version number. On a server socket, this means the remote client has requested the use of a version of SSL older than version 2.

This error code should be returned by the certificate authentication callback function when it detects that the Common Name in the remote server's certificate does not match the hostname sought by the local client, according to the matching rules specified for CERT_VerifyCertName. 

The remote server has asked to use SSL version 2, and SSL version 2 is disabled in the local client's configuration.

This usually indicates that the client and server have failed to come to agreement on the set of keys used to encrypt the application data and to check message integrity. If this occurs frequently on a server, an active attack (such as the "million question" attack) may be underway against the server.

The remote system has reported that it received a message with a bad Message Authentication Code from the local system. This may indicate that an attack on that server is underway.

The remote system has received a certificate from the local system, and has rejected it for some reason.

The remote system has received a certificate from the local system, and has determined that the certificate has been revoked.

The remote system has received a certificate from the local system, and has determined that the certificate has expired.

The local socket is configured in such a way that it cannot use any of the SSL cipher suites. Possible causes include: (a) both SSL2 and SSL3 are disabled, (b) All the individual SSL cipher suites are disabled, or (c) the socket is configured to handshake as a server, but the certificate associated with that socket is inappropriate for the Key Exchange Algorithm selected.

The local system and the remote system are in different FORTEZZA domains. They must be in the same domain to communicate.

The application has attempted to configure SSL to use an unknown cipher suite.

Possible causes: (a) all cipher suites have been configured to be disabled, (b) the only cipher suites that are configured to be enabled are those that are disallowed by cipher export policy, (c) the socket is configured to handshake as a server, but the certificate associated with that socket is inappropriate for the Key Exchange Algorithm selected.

SSL was using a Block cipher, and the last block in an SSL record had incorrect padding information in it. This usually indicates that the client and server have failed to come to agreement on the set of keys used to encrypt the application data and to check message integrity. If this occurs frequently on a server, an active attack (such as the "million question" attack) may be underway against the server.

This generally indicates that the remote peer system has a flawed implementation of SSL, and is violating the SSL specification.

This error should never occur. If it does, it indicates a flaw in the NSS SSL library.

The local socket received an SSL3 alert record from the remote peer, reporting that the remote peer has chosen to end the connection. The receipt of this alert is an error only if it occurs while a handshake is in progress. 

On a client socket, this error reports that the remote server has failed to perform an "SSL Step down" for an export cipher. It has sent a certificate bearing a domestic-grade public key, but has not sent a ServerKeyExchange message containing an export-grade public key for the key exchange algorithm. Such a connection cannot be permitted without violating U.S. export policies. On a server socket, this indicates a failure of the local library.

An SSL client has requested an SSL cipher suite that uses a Key Exchange Algorithm for which the local server has no appropriate public key. This indicates a configuration error on the local server.

A cryptographic operation required to complete the handshake failed because the token that was performing it was removed while the handshake was underway. Another token may also have been inserted into the same slot.

A cryptographic operation required a PKCS#11 token with specific abilities, and no token could be found in any slot, including the "soft token" in the internal virtual slot, that could do the job. May indicate a server configuration error, such as having a certificate that is inappropriate for the Key Exchange Algorithm selected.

Received a malformed (too long or short or invalid content) SSL handshake: 

All the error codes in the following block indicate that the local socket received an improperly formatted SSL3 handshake message from the remote peer. This probably indicates a flaw in the remote peer's implementation. 

Received a malformed (too long or short) SSL record:

All the error codes in the following block indicate that the local socket received an improperly formatted SSL3 record from the remote peer. This probably indicates a flaw in the remote peer's implementation. 

Received an SSL handshake that was inappropriate for the current state:

All the error codes in the following block indicate that the local socket received an SSL3 handshake message from the remote peer at a time when it was inappropriate for the peer to have sent this message. For example, a server received a message from another server. This probably indicates a flaw in the remote peer's implementation. 

Received an SSL record that was inappropriate for the current state:

All the error codes in the following block indicate that the local socket received an SSL3 record from the remote peer at a time when it was inappropriate for the peer to have sent this message. This probably indicates a flaw in the remote peer's implementation. 

Received record/message with unknown discriminant:

All the error codes in the following block indicate that the local socket received an SSL3 record or handshake message from the remote peer that it was unable to interpret because the byte that identifies the type of record or message contained an unrecognized value. This probably indicates a flaw in the remote peer's implementation.

Received an alert report:

All the error codes in the following block indicate that the local socket received an SSL3 or TLS alert record from the remote peer, reporting some issue that it had with an SSL record or handshake message it received. (Some _Alert codes are listed in other blocks.)

Unspecified errors that occurred while attempting some operation:

All the error codes in the following block describe the operation that was being attempted at the time of the unspecified failure. These failures may be caused by the system running out of memory, or errors returned by PKCS#11 routines that did not provide meaningful error codes of their own. These should rarely be seen. (Certain of these error codes have more specific meanings, as described.)

After the data to be sent was encrypted, the attempt to send it out the socket failed. Likely causes include that the peer has closed the connection.

On a client socket, indicates a failure of the PKCS11 key generation function. On a server socket, indicates a failure of one of the following: (a) to unwrap the pre-master secret from the ClientKeyExchange message, (b) to derive the master secret from the premaster secret, (c) to derive the MAC secrets, cryptographic keys, and initialization vectors from the master secret. If encountered repeatedly on a server socket, this can indicate that the server is actively under a "million question" attack.

or improper or corrupted data.