Getting SSL certificate chain from jabber server

Question

trying to connect my jabber client (pidgin) to a jabber server with self signed certificate, I am getting an "unable to validate certificate" error.

As it is not possible to tell the client not to validate the chain, I would like to get the certificate chain in order to import it there. Therefore I use:

openssl s_client -connect my.jabber.server.net:5222 </dev/null

I am getting the following answer:

openssl s_client -connect cup1.sprachdienst.fraunhofer.de:5222

> CONNECTED(00000003) 140472458057376:error:140790E5:SSL
> routines:SSL23_WRITE:ssl handshake failure:s23_lib.c:177:
> --- no peer certificate available
> --- No client certificate CA names sent
> --- SSL handshake has read 0 bytes and written 213 bytes
> --- New, (NONE), Cipher is (NONE) Secure Renegotiation IS NOT supported Compression: NONE Expansion: NONE
> ---

Why don't I get the certificate chain while my jabber client does?

Solution 1

The solution is: Jabber requires starttls:

openssl s_client -connect my.jabber.server.net:5222 </dev/null -starttls xmpp

returns the certificate

Solution 2

As noted in a previous answer, Jabber/XMPP requires -starttls.

Client-to-server (c2s) certificate for my.jabber.server.net.

openssl s_client -connect my.jabber.server.net:5222 </dev/null -starttls xmpp

To expand upon that answer, there are two types of connections:

• Normal client logins: -starttls xmpp, default port 5222
• Connection between servers: -starttls xmpp-server, default port 5269

Server-to-server (s2s) certificate for my.jabber.server.net.

openssl s_client -connect my.jabber.server.net:5269 </dev/null -starttls xmpp-server

---

With openssl v1.1.0+ you can also check custom domains, with the -xmpphost <domain> flag, or use the option alias -name in openssl v1.1.1+.

Client-to-server (c2s) certificate for custom domain other.example.org hosted by my.jabber.server.net:

openssl s_client -connect my.jabber.server.net:5222 </dev/null -starttls xmpp -xmpphost other.example.org

Server-to-server (s2s) certificate for custom domain other.example.org hosted by my.jabber.server.net:

openssl s_client -connect my.jabber.server.net:5269 </dev/null -starttls xmpp-server -xmpphost other.example.org

Comments

[noobish]

Not if your server is presenting a self-signed cert (although it's not good to blindly accept a cert downloaded in this fashion). If this is happening to you, you'll see: nss: ERROR -8172: SEC_ERROR_UNTRUSTED_ISSUER in the debug window for one of the received certs.

[Quantim]

Hi, the question is about how to get already generated and installed certificate from the jabber server, not generating new one.