SSL/TLS Configuration Checker
Analyze and Optimize SSL/TLS Hardening for Security & Performance
Improve your web server's security and performance by analyzing your SSL/TLS configuration. Our tool helps you understand the impact of protocol versions, cipher suites, and key exchange algorithms, balancing encryption strength with server responsiveness.
SSL/TLS Configuration Checker
Analyze your TLS configuration to balance security and performance based on modern best practices.
This tool provides a qualitative analysis based on industry best practices. It does not perform live tests on your server. Always consult official documentation and use tools like Qualys SSL Labs to test your live endpoints.
About This Tool
The SSL/TLS Configuration Checker is an educational tool for system administrators, security engineers, and web developers aiming to harden their web server security. While enabling HTTPS is a critical first step, a secure and performant setup involves choosing the right combination of protocols, key exchange algorithms, and cipher suites. This tool demystifies these complex settings. By allowing you to select different configuration options, it provides a qualitative analysis of your setup's security and performance characteristics, based on current industry best practices. It explains *why* TLS 1.3 is faster than TLS 1.2, *why* ECDHE is superior to RSA for key exchange, and *why* AEAD ciphers are preferred. It's a quick way to validate your Nginx or Apache configuration choices and learn how to build faster, more secure web experiences.
How to Use This Tool
- Select the TLS Protocol Version you are using or considering.
- Choose the Key Exchange algorithm your server is configured for.
- Select the type of cipher suite your server prioritizes.
- Click "Analyze Configuration" to see the qualitative results.
- Review the Security and Performance rating cards.
- Read the "Analysis & Recommendations" section to understand the "why" behind the ratings and learn about the best practices for each category.
In-Depth Guide
TLS Handshake: The Performance Bottleneck
When a browser first connects to a secure server, it performs a TLS handshake. This is a sequence of back-and-forth messages to agree on a protocol version, exchange keys, and verify certificates. This process can add significant latency. TLS 1.2 requires two round-trips (2-RTT). TLS 1.3, a major improvement, streamlines this process down to one round-trip (1-RTT), effectively halving the handshake latency, which is a huge performance win.
Key Exchange: RSA vs. ECDHE
The key exchange is how the client and server securely agree on a shared symmetric key for the session. The older method uses the server's RSA private key. This is slow and, crucially, does not provide "Forward Secrecy." If the server's private key is ever stolen, an attacker could decrypt all past recorded traffic. The modern method is Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman Ephemeral (ECDHE). It is much faster and provides Perfect Forward Secrecy because the session keys are ephemeral (temporary) and are not tied to the server's long-term private key.
Ciphers: AEAD vs. CBC
The cipher is the algorithm that actually encrypts the data. Older ciphers used modes like CBC (Cipher Block Chaining), which were vulnerable to certain types of attacks if not implemented perfectly. Modern ciphers are "AEAD" (Authenticated Encryption with Associated Data) ciphers, such as AES-GCM and ChaCha20-Poly1305. They bundle the encryption and a message authentication code (MAC) together in a way that is much more robust, secure, and often faster due to hardware acceleration.
Building a Modern Cipher Suite
A "cipher suite" is a string that defines the combination of key exchange, authentication, bulk cipher, and MAC algorithms to be used. A modern, secure cipher suite string for Nginx would prioritize TLS 1.3 ciphers, followed by ECDHE-based ciphers for TLS 1.2, while explicitly disabling old and insecure SSL/TLS versions and CBC-mode ciphers.