# How to start SSL?



## mechanic (Feb 7, 2013)

OK, I've installed openssl and there are tons of files in the system with 'ssl' in the name but how exactly to I start a service so ssl sets up keys and is available to my email client (which refuses to connect unless I have ssl or tcl running)? This is probably pretty obvious to most BSD users but I just don't see it.


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## jjennings089 (Feb 7, 2013)

The handbookhas a nice section on SSL. At the bottom of the page it tells how to test with telnet.


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## mechanic (Feb 8, 2013)

Thanks for the response jjennings089, I already read that part of the Handbook a couple of times and was perplexed by the section preceding the 'test' part as I don't run SendMail at all. Thus I hadn't considered running that test. At the same time after a couple of reboots the mail client seems happy so I guess the SSL part is working. Running the 'test' instructions as shown now, shows the "STARTTTLS" line as expected so I guess all is well? I was expecting some idea of which daemons to look out for to check if the openssl server was running though.

I'm pretty sure I asked for ssl to be running during the initial install of FreeBSD but as I had to reinstall a few (!) times due to this issue with packages on the ftp servers being all over the place - so setting PACKAGESITE being a hit or miss affair - memory is not too clear on that.


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## kpa (Feb 8, 2013)

s_client(1) can be used to test TLS enabled services.


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