As of FreeBSD 4.0, the OpenSSL toolkit is a part of the base system. OpenSSL provides a general-purpose
cryptography library, as well as the Secure Sockets Layer v2/v3 (SSLv2/SSLv3) and
Transport Layer Security v1 (TLSv1) network security protocols.
However, one of the algorithms (specifically IDEA) included in OpenSSL is protected by
patents in the USA and elsewhere, and is not available for unrestricted use. IDEA is
included in the OpenSSL sources in FreeBSD, but it is not built by default. If you wish
to use it, and you comply with the license terms, enable the MAKE_IDEA switch in /etc/make.conf and
rebuild your sources using make world.
Today, the RSA algorithm is free for use in USA and other countries. In the past it
was protected by a patent.
OpenSSL is part of the src-crypto and src-secure CVSup collections. See the Obtaining FreeBSD section for more information about obtaining
and updating FreeBSD source code.
