ssl_session_tickets
The `ssl_session_tickets` directive controls the enabling or disabling of SSL session ticket support in NGINX.
Description
The ssl_session_tickets directive in NGINX allows you to enable (or disable) the use of session tickets for SSL connections. When enabled, NGINX will use session tickets to securely resume SSL sessions, minimizing the need for clients to go through the full SSL handshake process during subsequent connections. This feature can improve performance in environments with high traffic where clients may frequently reconnect.
Session tickets work alongside the SSL session cache to allow session resumption without requiring the server to maintain state about every SSL session. When the client connects to the server for the first time, it will receive a session ticket, which it can use in future connections to present back to the server. When the server receives this ticket, it can decrypt it to retrieve the session information without needing to lookup the session in memory or a cache, thereby speeding up the SSL handshake for the client.
The directive accepts a flag parameter: it can be set to either 'on' or 'off'. When set to 'on', NGINX uses session tickets; when set to 'off', session tickets are disabled. It's worth noting that session tickets must be configured properly on the server-side along with keys to support secure encryption and decryption of the session tickets, which helps in preventing replay attacks or misuse.
Config Example
server {
listen 443 ssl;
server_name example.com;
ssl_certificate /etc/ssl/certs/example.com.crt;
ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/private/example.com.key;
ssl_session_tickets on;
}Ensure that your server has proper encryption keys configured for session tickets to secure them effectively.
Disabling session tickets may lead to longer SSL handshake times, as clients will not be able to resume sessions easily.
Make sure that the session ticket key is regularly rotated to maintain security.