SSL support for Lynx 2.8.1

Lynx, in its unmodified form, will not allow you to make secure socket
layer (SSL) connections.  SSL is used for the secure transfer of
information over the Internet.  Many sites are now requiring SSL to ensure
security for themselves and their users.  With a version of Lynx modified
to support SSL, Lynx users can now visit these sites with ease as well.

This SSL patch package for Lynx provides the ability to make use of SSL
over HTTP for secure access to web sites (HTTPS) and over NNTP for secure
access to news servers (SNEWS).  SSL is handled transparently, allowing
users to continue accessing web sites and news services from within Lynx
through the same interface for both secure and standard transfers.  These
patches are based on, and require, the SSLeay libraries.  SSLeay's
distribution and use may be restricted by licenses and laws.  For
information on obtaining SSLeay, as well as information on its
distribution, see http://psych.psy.uq.oz.au/~ftp/Crypto/. The main SSLeay
distribution site is ftp://ftp.psy.uq.oz.au/pub/Crypto/SSL.

SSLeay is required to be installed for these patches to Lynx to work. This
patch set is intended for Lynx 2.8.1, and was prepared against a 2.8.1rel1
source tree.  It is guaranteed to work with this version and only this
version of Lynx.

This adaptation of the patches was done by Mark Mentovai
(mark@moxienet.com).  The history of Lynx with SSL support is too detailed
to mention here, for more information on this, see the Lynx SSL home page
at http://www.moxienet.com/lynx/.

To patch your version of Lynx to cooperate with SSL, first be sure to have
SSLeay installed.  Then, you must apply these patches to the source.  If
you have the single-file patch version, decompress it in the lynx2-8-1
source directory and apply it using the command "patch -p1 <
lynx-281-ssl.patch".  If you do not have the patch command, or if this
does not work for you, use one of the versions of the patch containing the
whole files: decompress and unpack these files in the same directory you
decompressed and unpacked Lynx 2.8.1; the newer files in the update should
overwrite those of Lynx 2.8.1.

This patch involves changes to four files in the
WWW/Library/Implementation directory: HTAAUtil.c, HTFormat.c, HTNews.c,
and HTTP.c.  The makefile.in file in the top-level source directory is
also updated to enable SSL support and link with the SSLeay libraries.  
These patches will work for VMS, although I am no longer supplying VMS
build commands, as I have no way to test them.

Once the patch has been applied, the configure command should be run, and
Lynx should be compiled and installed as normal.  Before running make, you
may wish to check the generated makefile to ensure that the location of
the SSLeay library is set correctly.  (It's a good idea to review the
makefile created by configure from makefile.in anyway.)  After running
make, your version of Lynx should contain SSL support.  If you come across
any problems making Lynx with SSL that you can't solve (or that you can
solve but think I might like to know about), please contact me.  I would
also like to hear from people that are using my patch in interesting
settings.

To test your version of Lynx for its SSL support, visit
http://www.moxienet.com/lynx/ssl-test/.  It will redirect you to a page
which will give you various interesting details on your SSL connection (or
it will fail if SSL isn't working).

The distribution of the code contained in this patch may be restricted,
although technically, these patches contain no cryptographic code, merely
the hooks needed to allow Lynx to make use of cryptographic code provided
in the SSL libraries.  You can read about my opinion on the matter at
http://www.moxienet.com/crippled-cryptography.html.

This patch addresses an issue with Lynx crashing while visiting SSL sites
seen in earlier versions of this patch.  See http://www.moxienet.com/lynx/
for details.

Last updated: October 26, 1998
Original release: March 8, 1998

--
Mark Mentovai
mark@moxienet.com
http://www.moxienet.com/
