Forcing TFC-agent to Use Specific TLS Version to Connect to HCP Terraform Endpoints

Introduction

HCP Terraform Agents users may have a requirement at the proxy servers that restricts agents' outgoing HTTPS connections to use specific TLS versions. TFC-agents provided by HashiCorp are not aware of the TLS versions that are enabled for app.terraform.io and do not currently have the option to force HTTPS connection on a specific TLS version. However, this can be achieved at the OS level. In this tutorial, I am sharing how to configure the TLS version restriction on Linux systems.
 

Available TLS Versions for app.terraform.io

As of 2026/02/04, the available TLS versions are TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3.
- Source: https://www.cdn77.com/tls-test/result?domain=app.terraform.io
 

Procedure

Here is an example for forcing all outbound HTTPS connections to app.terraform.io to use TLS 1.2.

• For applications that use OpenSSL (most common):

  • Adding these lines to /etc/ssl/openssl.cnf,

    [system_default_sect]
    CipherString = DEFAULT:@SECLEVEL=2
    MinProtocol = TLSv1.2
    MaxProtocol = TLSv1.2

    Also making sure the /etc/ssl/openssl.cnf contains this lines (usually already existed by default)

    [ssl_sect]
    system_default = system_default_sect

• For applications that use GnuTLS,

  • Adding these lines to /etc/gnutls/config,

    [overrides]
    disabled-version = tls1.0
    disabled-version = tls1.1
    disabled-version = tls1.3

Additional Information

• Install and run HCP Terraform agents
• OpenSSL: SSL configuration
• GnuTLS: Disabling algorithms and protocols