Changing SSLCipherSuite on Wordpress Droplet

April 27, 2017 1.3k views
One-Click Install Apps Apache Ubuntu
Jubal
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Jubal

I've got a one-click app of wordpress running on Ubntu 14.04.1, I've upgraded and no matter what I change in the Apache config (with subsequent restart of Apache, or even VM) the cipher suite used never changes when I evaluate the HTTPS connection details from a client.

I greped to find all the instances of SSLCipherSuite in all of/etc/apache2 and the only uncommented specification of what cipher suite to use is my own:
SSLCipherSuite AES256+EECDH:AES256+EDH:HIGH

^ Note both defined are 256 bit bulk ciphers, yet no matter if I restart apache or the VM Calomel SSL validation on Firefox

What gives?

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2 Answers
Jubal April 27, 2017

I meant to add that the bulk cipher my client is using to connect to the site is 128 bit AES

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jtittle1 April 27, 2017

@Jubal

You may want to extend the configuration by adding:

SSLProtocol all -SSLv2 -SSLv3
SSLHonorCipherOrder on

... above the SSLCipherSuite directive. What you'd end up with is:

SSLProtocol all -SSLv2 -SSLv3
SSLHonorCipherOrder on
SSLCipherSuite AES256+EECDH:AES256+EDH:HIGH

...

That being said, I would recommend using what's provided by https://cipherli.st:

SSLCipherSuite EECDH+AESGCM:EDH+AESGCM:AES256+EECDH:AES256+EDH
SSLProtocol All -SSLv2 -SSLv3
SSLHonorCipherOrder On
Header always set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=63072000; includeSubDomains; preload"
Header always set X-Frame-Options DENY
Header always set X-Content-Type-Options nosniff
# Requires Apache >= 2.4
SSLCompression off 
SSLUseStapling on 
SSLStaplingCache "shmcb:logs/stapling-cache(150000)" 
# Requires Apache >= 2.4.11
SSLSessionTickets Off

...

It's important to keep in mind, the ciphers that you list in SSLCipherSuite will only be used when they are supported. If the connecting client does not support them, it'll cause an error.

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