495380 - SEC_ERROR_OCSP_SERVER_ERROR is grossly ambiguous

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core :: Security: PSM, defect, P5)

Description

[Nelson Bolyard (seldom reads bugmail)]

I received the following critque of NSS's OCSP code in email.

> SEC_ERROR_OCSP_SERVER_ERROR is used 5 times in ocsp.c for everything 
> from an internal OCSP server error to failing create the request session 
> and any number of different problems writing the request to the remote 
> server.  When something goes bump in the night you have to attach a 
> debugger to see which bump it is. 

I think we should seriously attempt to change those 5 uses of that error code
so that they report unique error codes for some (if not all) of them.

Comment 1

[kie000]

Agreed, It just happened to me and I didn't have a clue what it meant, googling doesn't help. I am reasoably tech savvy.

Comment 2

[admin]

After I renewed the SSL certificate for a domain Firefox shows this bug/error on https://
Only solution I could find was to toggle security.ssl.enable_ocsp_stapling to false.
Other browsers show it fine, but I am unable to understand the exact reason for the problem in Firefox. I would appreciate a more specific error message!

Comment 3

[Dana Keeler (she/her) [:keeler]]

In as much as this applies to Firefox, users will essentially only see this error when a server staples an OCSP response with an OCSPResponseStatus of internalError. Since Firefox has no more information than this, there's not much we can do.