3.5.4 Resuming sessions

The TLS handshake process performs expensive calculations and a busy server might easily be put under load. To reduce the load, session resumption may be used. This is a feature of the TLS protocol which allows a client to connect to a server after a successful handshake, without the expensive calculations. This is achieved by re-using the previously established keys, meaning the server needs to store the state of established connections (unless session tickets are used – Session tickets).

Session resumption is an integral part of GnuTLS, and Session resumption and ex:resume-client illustrate typical uses of it.

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