This topic describes setting cipher specifications for secure transactions.
IBM HTTP Server has a built-in list of cipher specifications to use for communicating with clients over Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). The actual cipher specification that is used for a particular client connection is selected from those which are supported by both IBM HTTP Server and the client.
Some cipher specifications provide a weaker level of security than others, and might need to be avoided for security reasons. Some of the stronger cipher specifications are more computationally intensive than weaker cipher specifications and might be avoided if required for performance reasons. You can use the SSLCipherSpec directive to provide a customized list of cipher specifications that are supported by the Web server in order to avoid the selection of cipher specifications that are considered too weak or too computationally intensive.