UDP packet encryption

Question

This appears to be reasonably trivial if using the ssl module for TCP communication, but how would encrypted communication be done via UDP?

Can the ssl module still be used? if so, what steps would need to be performed for the client and server to be in a position where data can be sent to-and-fro as normal?

Answer 1

DTLS is a TLS (aka SSL) derivative designed for use over datagram transports, like UDP.

OpenSSL supports DTLS starting in 0.9.8, using DTLSv1_METHOD instead of SSLv23_METHOD or TLSv1_METHOD or similar.

Answer 2

If you want to send encrypted data using UDP, I would advise against it for one reason. UDP is a connectionless protocol, meaning that you have no guarantuee or way of knowing that your packets are being received at the other end. I don't know about you, but I find that a bit of a security concern. Since you're dealing with encryption, I guess security is a concern.

Answer 3

You could use pyCrypto or ezPyCrypto to manually encrypt/decrypt the packets.