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.
For questions about FreeBSD, e-mail
<questions@FreeBSD.org>.
For questions about this documentation, e-mail <doc@FreeBSD.org>.