Using SSL and SslStream for peer to peer authentication?
- by Scott Whitlock
I need to provide secure communication between various processes that are using TCP/IP sockets for communication. I want both authentication and encryption. Rather than re-invent the wheel I would really like to use SSL and the SslStream class and self-signed certificates. What I want to do is validate the remote process's certificate against a known copy in my local application. (There doesn't need to be a certificate authority because I intend for the certificates to be copied around manually).
To do this, I want the application to be able to automatically generate a new certifiate the first time it is run. In addition to makecert.exe, it looks like this link shows a way to automatically generate self-signed certificates, so that's a start.
I've looked at the AuthenticateAsServer and AuthenticateAsClient methods of SslStream. You can provide call-backs for verification, so it looks like it's possible. But now that I'm into the details of it, I really don't think it's possible to do this.
Am I going in the right direction? Is there a better alternative? Has anyone done anything like this before (basically peer-to-peer SSL rather than client-server)?
