SSL and TLS with EMySQL API

Using the EMySQL API – Part 13

Foreword: In this part of the series, you learn how to use TLS for the EMySQL API client.

By: Date Published: 24 Oct 2017

Introduction

SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer. TLS stands for Transport Layer Security. SSL and its successor, TLS provide communication security between the client (browser, email program, database client program, etc.) and the web server. Such security prevents middle-man attack and wrong source and destination impersonation. Though SSL is obsolete, the term, "SSL" is still used in place of both SSL or TLS. In this part of the series, you learn how to use TLS for the EMySQL API client.

The web scheme for SSL operation is HTTPS and not HTTP, as in https://www.site.com .

To use TLS with EMySQL API client, you need two files which are called, the client key (client-key.pem) file and the client certificate (client-cert.pem) file. You may also need the server certificate (server-cert.pem) file; server certificate can be considered as certificate authoriry (ca). Search this site (or the web) for the meaning and how to obtain these three files.

You should use TLS with MySQL when the API client and the MySQL server are in different computers (in a network).

Syntax
The EMySQL API client indicates to the MySQL server that it wants TLS communication, when it connects to the MySQL server. The syntax is:

con = new mysql.Connection("root", "secret", "server.com", 3306, callbackFn(){}, undefined, 'tls', 'path/to/client-key.pem', 'path/to/client-cert.pem', [, 'path/to/server-cert.pem'] );

The last file in the argument list is optional, depending on the network system. The sixth argument is undefined instead of 'compress'. TLS also does compression, so if the sixth argument is 'compress', there will be an unnecessary second compression of data.

Example
The following code should read rows from a table in a MySQL database, or inform you that the MySQL server does not support TLS:

const mysql = require('./server/Mysql.js');

    con = new mysql.Connection("root", "secret", "localhost", 3306, function(err)
        {
            if (err)
                console.log(err);
        }, undefined, 'tls', 'client-key.pem', 'client-cert.pem');

    var db = `PetStore`;
    con.selectDB(db, function(err)
        {
            if (err)
                console.log(err);
            else
                console.log('database selected');
        });

    var selStr = `SELECT * FROM pet`;
    con.query(selStr, function(err, result)
        {
            if (err)
                console.log(err);
            else
                {
                   for (i=0; i<result.length; ++i)
                       {
                            tempStr = `${result[i].get('name')}, ${result[i].get('owner')}, ${result[i].get('species')}, ${result[i].get('sex')}, ${result[i].get('birth')}, ${result[i].get('death')}`

                           console.log(tempStr);
                       }
                }
        });

   con.close();

That is it for this part of the series. We stop here and continue in the next part.

Chrys

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