===============
 M2Crypto 0.12
===============

:Author: Ng Pheng Siong
:Id: $Id: README,v 1.7 2003/10/27 02:06:36 ngps Exp $
:Date: $Date: 2003/10/27 02:06:36 $
:Web-Site: http://sandbox.rulemaker.net/ngps/m2


M2Crypto = Python + OpenSSL + SWIG
------------------------------------

M2 stands for "me, too!" [1]_

M2Crypto comes with the following:

- **DH**, **RSA**, **DSA**, **symmetric ciphers** including **AES**,
  **message digests**, **HMACs**.

- **SSL functionality** to implement clients and servers.

- **Example SSL client and server programs**, which are variously
  **threading**, **forking** or based on **non-blocking socket IO**.

- **HTTPS** extensions to Python's HTTP functionality.

- Unforgeable HMAC'ing **AuthCookies** for **web session management**.

- **XML-RPC over SSL**.

- **S/MIME v2**.

- **FTP/TLS** client and server.

- **ZServerSSL**: A **HTTPS server for Zope**.

- **ZSmime**: A **Zope** server plug-in to generate **S/MIME** messages.

M2Crypto is released under a very liberal BSD-style licence. See 
LICENCE for details.

This release requires Python 2.1, 2.2 or 2.3, OpenSSL 0.9.7 or later, and
SWIG 1.3.17 or later. Earlier versions of Python may or may not work. OpenSSL
versions earlier than 0.9.7 will not work; you are recommended to use the current
version of OpenSSL. Earlier versions of SWIG may not work.

To install, see the file INSTALL.

Note these caveats:

- Possible memory leaks, because some objects need to be freed on the
  Python side and other objects on the C side, and these may change
  between OpenSSL versions. (Multiple free's lead to crashes very
  quickly, so these should be relatively rare.)
    
- No memory locking/clearing for keys, passphrases, etc.
    
- PRNG may not be CS [2]_ nor CS [3]_.
    
- AFAIK, Python and OpenSSL have not been subjected to the full
  attention of the Bugtraq crowd. M2Crypto's handling of active hostile
  input is probably suspect. [4]_
    

Have fun! Your feedback is welcome.


.. [1] Similar software are Marc-Andre Lemburg's mxCrypto, and two earlier
   Python interfaces to the SSL portion of SSLeay/OpenSSL. Since M2Crypto,
   yet more OpenSSL wrappers and non-OpenSSL crypto toolkits for
   Python have appeared.

.. [2] Continuous seeding.

.. [3] Cryptographically strong.

.. [4] In recent years, there have been reported vulnerabilities
   in some versions of OpenSSL and attacks against the SSL protocol
   itself.
