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Setting 3072- and 4096-bit Diffie-Hellman values

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Setting 3072- and 4096-bit Diffie-Hellman values

The ssl-dh-bits option allows you to specify the number of bits of the prime number used in the Diffie-Hellman exchange for RSA encryption of the SSL connection. Larger prime numbers are associated with greater cryptographic strength. You can set DH values from 768 to 4096 bits.

Command syntax is:

config firewall vip

edit server-name

set type server-load-balance

set server-type https

set ssl-dh-bits {768 | 1024 | 1536 | 2048 | 3072 | 4096}

Setting the DH bits to 2048 only provides the equivalent of a symmetric cipher in the range of 112 - 128 bits. This means that if AES 256 is used then the weakest point is the DH of 2048 and a value of at least 3072 should be use if the goal is to have 256 bits of security.

FortiGate models with CP9 processors support 3072 and 4096 DH bit sizes in hardware. All FortiGate models up to and including those with CP8 processors only support offloading DH bit sizes up to 2048 so any sizes larger than that are done in software and thus are relatively resource intensive.

Setting 3072- and 4096-bit Diffie-Hellman values

The ssl-dh-bits option allows you to specify the number of bits of the prime number used in the Diffie-Hellman exchange for RSA encryption of the SSL connection. Larger prime numbers are associated with greater cryptographic strength. You can set DH values from 768 to 4096 bits.

Command syntax is:

config firewall vip

edit server-name

set type server-load-balance

set server-type https

set ssl-dh-bits {768 | 1024 | 1536 | 2048 | 3072 | 4096}

Setting the DH bits to 2048 only provides the equivalent of a symmetric cipher in the range of 112 - 128 bits. This means that if AES 256 is used then the weakest point is the DH of 2048 and a value of at least 3072 should be use if the goal is to have 256 bits of security.

FortiGate models with CP9 processors support 3072 and 4096 DH bit sizes in hardware. All FortiGate models up to and including those with CP8 processors only support offloading DH bit sizes up to 2048 so any sizes larger than that are done in software and thus are relatively resource intensive.