Request for Comments: 3280 RSA Laboratories
Obsoletes: 2459 W. Polk
Category: Standards Track NIST
W. Ford
VeriSign
D. Solo
Citigroup
April 2002
Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure
Certificate and Certificate Revocation List (CRL) Profile
Status of this Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2002). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This memo profiles the X.509 v3 certificate and X.509 v2 Certificate
Revocation List (CRL) for use in the Internet. An overview of this
approach and model are provided as an introduction. The X.509 v3
certificate format is described in detail, with additional
information regarding the format and semantics of Internet name
forms. Standard certificate extensions are described and two
Internet-specific extensions are defined. A set of required
certificate extensions is specified. The X.509 v2 CRL format is
described in detail, and required extensions are defined. An
algorithm for X.509 certification path validation is described. An
ASN.1 module and examples are provided in the appendices.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2 Requirements and Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1 Communication and Topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2 Acceptability Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.3 User Expectations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.4 Administrator Expectations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3 Overview of Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.1 X.509 Version 3 Certificate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.2 Certification Paths and Trust . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.3 Revocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.4 Operational Protocols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.5 Management Protocols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4 Certificate and Certificate Extensions Profile . . . . . 14
4.1 Basic Certificate Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.1.1 Certificate Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.1.1.1 tbsCertificate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.1.1.2 signatureAlgorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.1.1.3 signatureValue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.1.2 TBSCertificate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.1.2.1 Version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.1.2.2 Serial number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.1.2.3 Signature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.1.2.4 Issuer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.1.2.5 Validity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.1.2.5.1 UTCTime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.1.2.5.2 GeneralizedTime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.1.2.6 Subject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.1.2.7 Subject Public Key Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.1.2.8 Unique Identifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.1.2.9 Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.2 Certificate Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.2.1 Standard Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4.2.1.1 Authority Key Identifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.2.1.2 Subject Key Identifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.2.1.3 Key Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.2.1.4 Private Key Usage Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.2.1.5 Certificate Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.2.1.6 Policy Mappings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.2.1.7 Subject Alternative Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.2.1.8 Issuer Alternative Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.2.1.9 Subject Directory Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.2.1.10 Basic Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.2.1.11 Name Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.2.1.12 Policy Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.2.1.13 Extended Key Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.2.1.14 CRL Distribution Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.2.1.15 Inhibit Any-Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.2.1.16 Freshest CRL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.2.2 Internet Certificate Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.2.2.1 Authority Information Access . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.2.2.2 Subject Information Access . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
5 CRL and CRL Extensions Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
5.1 CRL Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
5.1.1 CertificateList Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
5.1.1.1 tbsCertList . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
5.1.1.2 signatureAlgorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
5.1.1.3 signatureValue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
5.1.2 Certificate List "To Be Signed" . . . . . . . . . . . 51
5.1.2.1 Version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
5.1.2.2 Signature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
5.1.2.3 Issuer Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
5.1.2.4 This Update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
5.1.2.5 Next Update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
5.1.2.6 Revoked Certificates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
5.1.2.7 Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
5.2 CRL Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
5.2.1 Authority Key Identifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
5.2.2 Issuer Alternative Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
5.2.3 CRL Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
5.2.4 Delta CRL Indicator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
5.2.5 Issuing Distribution Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
5.2.6 Freshest CRL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
5.3 CRL Entry Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
5.3.1 Reason Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
5.3.2 Hold Instruction Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
5.3.3 Invalidity Date . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
5.3.4 Certificate Issuer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
6 Certificate Path Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
6.1 Basic Path Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
6.1.1 Inputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
6.1.2 Initialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
6.1.3 Basic Certificate Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
6.1.4 Preparation for Certificate i+1 . . . . . . . . . . . 75
6.1.5 Wrap-up procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
6.1.6 Outputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
6.2 Extending Path Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
6.3 CRL Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
6.3.1 Revocation Inputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
6.3.2 Initialization and Revocation State Variables . . . . 82
6.3.3 CRL Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
7 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
8 Intellectual Property Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
9 Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Appendix A. ASN.1 Structures and OIDs . . . . . . . . . . . 92
A.1 Explicitly Tagged Module, 1988 Syntax . . . . . . . . . 92
A.2 Implicitly Tagged Module, 1988 Syntax . . . . . . . . . 105
Appendix B. ASN.1 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Appendix C. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
C.1 DSA Self-Signed Certificate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
C.2 End Entity Certificate Using DSA . . . . . . . . . . . 119
C.3 End Entity Certificate Using RSA . . . . . . . . . . . 122
C.4 Certificate Revocation List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Author Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Full Copyright Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
1 Introduction
This specification is one part of a family of standards for the X.509
Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) for the Internet.
This specification profiles the format and semantics of certificates
and certificate revocation lists (CRLs) for the Internet PKI.
Procedures are described for processing of certification paths in the
Internet environment. Finally, ASN.1 modules are provided in the
appendices for all data structures defined or referenced.
Section 2 describes Internet PKI requirements, and the assumptions
which affect the scope of this document. Section 3 presents an
architectural model and describes its relationship to previous IETF
and ISO/IEC/ITU-T standards. In particular, this document's
relationship with the IETF PEM specifications and the ISO/IEC/ITU-T
X.509 documents are described.
Section 4 profiles the X.509 version 3 certificate, and section 5
profiles the X.509 version 2 CRL. The profiles include the
identification of ISO/IEC/ITU-T and ANSI extensions which may be
useful in the Internet PKI. The profiles are presented in the 1988
Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1) rather than the 1997 ASN.1
syntax used in the most recent ISO/IEC/ITU-T standards.
Section 6 includes certification path validation procedures. These
procedures are based upon the ISO/IEC/ITU-T definition.
Implementations are REQUIRED to derive the same results but are not
required to use the specified procedures.
Procedures for identification and encoding of public key materials
and digital signatures are defined in [PKIXALGS]. Implementations of
this specification are not required to use any particular
cryptographic algorithms. However, conforming implementations which
use the algorithms identified in [PKIXALGS] MUST identify and encode
the public key materials and digital signatures as described in that
specification.
Finally, three appendices are provided to aid implementers. Appendix
A contains all ASN.1 structures defined or referenced within this
specification. As above, the material is presented in the 1988
ASN.1. Appendix B contains notes on less familiar features of the
ASN.1 notation used within this specification. Appendix C contains
examples of a conforming certificate and a conforming CRL.
This specification obsoletes RFC2459. This specification differs
from RFC2459 in five basic areas:
* To promote interoperable implementations, a detailed algorithm
for certification path validation is included in section 6.1 of
this specification; RFC2459 provided only a high-level
description of path validation.
* An algorithm for determining the status of a certificate using
CRLs is provided in section 6.3 of this specification. This
material was not present in RFC2459.
* To accommodate new usage models, detailed information describing
the use of delta CRLs is provided in Section 5 of this
specification.
* Identification and encoding of public key materials and digital
signatures are not included in this specification, but are now
described in a companion specification [PKIXALGS].
* Four additional extensions are specified: three certificate
extensions and one CRL extension. The certificate extensions are
subject info access, inhibit any-policy, and freshest CRL. The
freshest CRL extension is also defined as a CRL extension.
* Throughout the specification, clarifications have been
introduced to enhance consistency with the ITU-T X.509
specification. X.509 defines the certificate and CRL format as
well as many of the extensions that appear in this specification.
These changes were introduced to improve the likelihood of
interoperability between implementations based on this
specification with implementations based on the ITU-T
specification.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC2119.
2 Requirements and Assumptions
The goal of this specification is to develop a profile to facilitate
the use of X.509 certificates within Internet applications for those
communities wishing to make use of X.509 technology. Such
applications may include WWW, electronic mail, user authentication,
and IPsec. In order to relieve some of the obstacles to using X.509
certificates, this document defines a profile to promote the
development of certificate management systems; development of
application tools; and interoperability determined by policy.
Some communities will need to supplement, or possibly replace, this
profile in order to meet the requirements of specialized application
domains or environments with additional authorization, assurance, or
operational requirements. However, for basic applications, common
representations of frequently used attributes are defined so that
application developers can obtain necessary information without
regard to the issuer of a particular certificate or certificate
revocation list (CRL).
A certificate user should review the certificate policy generated by
the certification authority (CA) before relying on the authentication
or non-repudiation services associated with the public key in a
particular certificate. To this end, this standard does not
prescribe legally binding rules or duties.
As supplemental authorization and attribute management tools emerge,
such as attribute certificates, it may be appropriate to limit the
authenticated attributes that are included in a certificate. These
other management tools may provide more appropriate methods of
conveying many authenticated attributes.
2.1 Communication and Topology
The users of certificates will operate in a wide range of
environments with respect to their communication topology, especially
users of secure electronic mail. This profile supports users without
high bandwidth, real-time IP connectivity, or high connection
availability. In addition, the profile allows for the presence of
firewall or other filtered communication.
This profile does not assume the deployment of an X.500 Directory
system or a LDAP directory system. The profile does not prohibit the
use of an X.500 Directory or a LDAP directory; however, any means of
distributing certificates and certificate revocation lists (CRLs) may
be used.
2.2 Acceptability Criteria
The goal of the Internet Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is to meet
the needs of deterministic, automated identification, authentication,
access control, and authorization functions. Support for these
services determines the attributes contained in the certificate as
well as the ancillary control information in the certificate such as
policy data and certification path constraints.
2.3 User Expectations
Users of the Internet PKI are people and processes who use client
software and are the subjects named in certificates. These uses
include readers and writers of electronic mail, the clients for WWW
browsers, WWW servers, and the key manager for IPsec within a router.
This profile recognizes the limitations of the platforms these users
employ and the limitations in sophistication and attentiveness of the
users themselves. This manifests itself in minimal user
configuration responsibility (e.g., trusted CA keys, rules), explicit
platform usage constraints within the certificate, certification path
constraints which shield the user from many malicious actions, and
applications which sensibly automate validation functions.
2.4 Administrator Expectations
As with user expectations, the Internet PKI profile is structured to
support the individuals who generally operate CAs. Providing
administrators with unbounded choices increases the chances that a
subtle CA administrator mistake will result in broad compromise.
Also, unbounded choices greatly complicate the software that process
and validate the certificates created by the CA.
3 Overview of Approach
Following is a simplified view of the architectural model assumed by
the PKIX specifications.
The components in this model are:
end entity: user of PKI certificates and/or end user system that is
the subject of a certificate;
CA: certification authority;
RA: registration authority, i.e., an optional system to which
a CA delegates certain management functions;
CRL issuer: an optional system to which a CA delegates the
publication of certificate revocation lists;
repository: a system or collection of distributed systems that stores
certificates and CRLs and serves as a means of
distributing these certificates and CRLs to end entities.
Note that an Attribute Authority (AA) might also choose to delegate
the publication of CRLs to a CRL issuer.
+---+
| C | +------------+
| e | <-------------------->| End entity |
| r | Operational +------------+
| t | transactions ^
| i | and management | Management
| f | transactions | transactions PKI
| i | | users
| c | v
| a | ======================= +--+------------+ ==============
| t | ^ ^
| e | | | PKI
| | v | management
| & | +------+ | entities
| | <---------------------| RA |<----+ |
| C | Publish certificate +------+ | |
| R | | |
| L | | |
| | v v
| R | +------------+
| e | <------------------------------| CA |
| p | Publish certificate +------------+
| o | Publish CRL ^ ^
| s | | | Management
| i | +------------+ | | transactions
| t | <--------------| CRL Issuer |<----+ |
| o | Publish CRL +------------+ v
| r | +------+
| y | | CA |
+---+ +------+
Figure 1 - PKI Entities
3.1 X.509 Version 3 Certificate
Users of a public key require confidence that the associated private
key is owned by the correct remote subject (person or system) with
which an encryption or digital signature mechanism will be used.
This confidence is obtained through the use of public key
certificates, which are data structures that bind public key values
to subjects. The binding is asserted by having a trusted CA
digitally sign each certificate. The CA may base this assertion upon
technical means (a.k.a., proof of possession through a challenge-
response protocol), presentation of the private key, or on an
assertion by the subject. A certificate has a limited valid lifetime
which is indicated in its signed contents. Because a certificate's
signature and timeliness can be independently checked by a
certificate-using client, certificates can be distributed via
untrusted communications and server systems, and can be cached in
unsecured storage in certificate-using systems.
ITU-T X.509 (formerly CCITT X.509) or ISO/IEC 9594-8, which was first
published in 1988 as part of the X.500 Directory recommendations,
defines a standard certificate format [X.509]. The certificate
format in the 1988 standard is called the version 1 (v1) format.
When X.500 was revised in 1993, two more fields were added, resulting
in the version 2 (v2) format.
The Internet Privacy Enhanced Mail (PEM) RFCs, published in 1993,
include specifications for a public key infrastructure based on X.509
v1 certificates [RFC1422]. The experience gained in attempts to
deploy RFC1422 made it clear that the v1 and v2 certificate formats
are deficient in several respects. Most importantly, more fields
were needed to carry information which PEM design and implementation
experience had proven necessary. In response to these new
requirements, ISO/IEC, ITU-T and ANSI X9 developed the X.509 version
3 (v3) certificate format. The v3 format extends the v2 format by
adding provision for additional extension fields. Particular
extension field types may be specified in standards or may be defined
and registered by any organization or community. In June 1996,
standardization of the basic v3 format was completed [X.509].
ISO/IEC, ITU-T, and ANSI X9 have also developed standard extensions
for use in the v3 extensions field [X.509][X9.55]. These extensions
can convey such data as additional subject identification
information, key attribute information, policy information, and
certification path constraints.
However, the ISO/IEC, ITU-T, and ANSI X9 standard extensions are very
broad in their applicability. In order to develop interoperable
implementations of X.509 v3 systems for Internet use, it is necessary
to specify a profile for use of the X.509 v3 extensions tailored for
the Internet. It is one goal of this document to specify a profile
for Internet WWW, electronic mail, and IPsec applications.
Environments with additional requirements may build on this profile
or may replace it.
3.2 Certification Paths and Trust
A user of a security service requiring knowledge of a public key
generally needs to obtain and validate a certificate containing the
required public key. If the public key user does not already hold an
assured copy of the public key of the CA that signed the certificate,
the CA's name, and related information (such as the validity period
or name constraints), then it might need an additional certificate to
obtain that public key. In general, a chain of multiple certificates
may be needed, comprising a certificate of the public key owner (the
end entity) signed by one CA, and zero or more additional
certificates of CAs signed by other CAs. Such chains, called
certification paths, are required because a public key user is only
initialized with a limited number of assured CA public keys.
There are different ways in which CAs might be configured in order
for public key users to be able to find certification paths. For
PEM, RFC1422 defined a rigid hierarchical structure of CAs. There
are three types of PEM certification authority:
(a) Internet Policy Registration Authority (IPRA): This
authority, operated under the auspices of the Internet Society,
acts as the root of the PEM certification hierarchy at level 1.
It issues certificates only for the next level of authorities,
PCAs. All certification paths start with the IPRA.
(b) Policy Certification Authorities (PCAs): PCAs are at level 2
of the hierarchy, each PCA being certified by the IPRA. A PCA
shall establish and publish a statement of its policy with respect
to certifying users or subordinate certification authorities.
Distinct PCAs aim to satisfy different user needs. For example,
one PCA (an organizational PCA) might support the general
electronic mail needs of commercial organizations, and another PCA
(a high-assurance PCA) might have a more stringent policy designed
for satisfying legally binding digital signature requirements.
(c) Certification Authorities (CAs): CAs are at level 3 of the
hierarchy and can also be at lower levels. Those at level 3 are
certified by PCAs. CAs represent, for example, particular
organizations, particular organizational units (e.g., departments,
groups, sections), or particular geographical areas.
RFC1422 furthermore has a name subordination rule which requires
that a CA can only issue certificates for entities whose names are
subordinate (in the X.500 naming tree) to the name of the CA itself.
The trust associated with a PEM certification path is implied by the
PCA name. The name subordination rule ensures that CAs below the PCA
are sensibly constrained as to the set of subordinate entities they
can certify (e.g., a CA for an organization can only certify entities
in that organization's name tree). Certificate user systems are able
to mechanically check that the name subordination rule has been
followed.
The RFC1422 uses the X.509 v1 certificate formats. The limitations
of X.509 v1 required imposition of several structural restrictions to
clearly associate policy information or restrict the utility of
certificates. These restrictions included:
(a) a pure top-down hierarchy, with all certification paths
starting from IPRA;
(b) a naming subordination rule restricting the names of a CA's
subjects; and
(c) use of the PCA concept, which requires knowledge of
individual PCAs to be built into certificate chain verification
logic. Knowledge of individual PCAs was required to determine if
a chain could be accepted.
With X.509 v3, most of the requirements addressed by RFC1422 can be
addressed using certificate extensions, without a need to restrict
the CA structures used. In particular, the certificate extensions
relating to certificate policies obviate the need for PCAs and the
constraint extensions obviate the need for the name subordination
rule. As a result, this document supports a more flexible
architecture, including:
(a) Certification paths start with a public key of a CA in a
user's own domain, or with the public key of the top of a
hierarchy. Starting with the public key of a CA in a user's own
domain has certain advantages. In some environments, the local
domain is the most trusted.
(b) Name constraints may be imposed through explicit inclusion of
a name constraints extension in a certificate, but are not
required.
(c) Policy extensions and policy mappings replace the PCA
concept, which permits a greater degree of automation. The
application can determine if the certification path is acceptable
based on the contents of the certificates instead of a priori
knowledge of PCAs. This permits automation of certification path
processing.
3.3 Revocation
When a certificate is issued, it is expected to be in use for its
entire validity period. However, various circumstances may cause a
certificate to become invalid prior to the expiration of the validity
period. Such circumstances include change of name, change of
association between subject and CA (e.g., an employee terminates
employment with an organization), and compromise or suspected
compromise of the corresponding private key. Under such
circumstances, the CA needs to revoke the certificate.
X.509 defines one method of certificate revocation. This method
involves each CA periodically issuing a signed data structure called
a certificate revocation list (CRL). A CRL is a time stamped list
identifying revoked certificates which is signed by a CA or CRL
issuer and made freely available in a public repository. Each
revoked certificate is identified in a CRL by its certificate serial
number. When a certificate-using system uses a certificate (e.g.,
for verifying a remote user's digital signature), that system not
only checks the certificate signature and validity but also acquires
a suitably-recent CRL and checks that the certificate serial number
is not on that CRL. The meaning of "suitably-recent" may vary with
local policy, but it usually means the most recently-issued CRL. A
new CRL is issued on a regular periodic basis (e.g., hourly, daily,
or weekly). An entry is added to the CRL as part of the next update
following notification of revocation. An entry MUST NOT be removed
from the CRL until it appears on one regularly scheduled CRL issued
beyond the revoked certificate's validity period.
An advantage of this revocation method is that CRLs may be
distributed by exactly the same means as certificates themselves,
namely, via untrusted servers and untrusted communications.
One limitation of the CRL revocation method, using untrusted
communications and servers, is that the time granularity of
revocation is limited to the CRL issue period. For example, if a
revocation is reported now, that revocation will not be reliably
notified to certificate-using systems until all currently issued CRLs
are updated -- this may be up to one hour, one day, or one week
depending on the frequency that CRLs are issued.
As with the X.509 v3 certificate format, in order to facilitate
interoperable implementations from multiple vendors, the X.509 v2 CRL
format needs to be profiled for Internet use. It is one goal of this
document to specify that profile. However, this profile does not
require the issuance of CRLs. Message formats and protocols
supporting on-line revocation notification are defined in other PKIX
specifications. On-line methods of revocation notification may be
applicable in some environments as an alternative to the X.509 CRL.
On-line revocation checking may significantly reduce the latency
between a revocation report and the distribution of the information
to relying parties. Once the CA accepts a revocation report as
authentic and valid, any query to the on-line service will correctly
reflect the certificate validation impacts of the revocation.
However, these methods impose new security requirements: the
certificate validator needs to trust the on-line validation service
while the repository does not need to be trusted.
3.4 Operational Protocols
Operational protocols are required to deliver certificates and CRLs
(or status information) to certificate using client systems.
Provisions are needed for a variety of different means of certificate
and CRL delivery, including distribution procedures based on LDAP,
HTTP, FTP, and X.500. Operational protocols supporting these
functions are defined in other PKIX specifications. These
specifications may include definitions of message formats and
procedures for supporting all of the above operational environments,
including definitions of or references to appropriate MIME content
types.
3.5 Management Protocols
Management protocols are required to support on-line interactions
between PKI user and management entities. For example, a management
protocol might be used between a CA and a client system with which a
key pair is associated, or between two CAs which cross-certify each
other. The set of functions which potentially need to be supported
by management protocols include:
(a) registration: This is the process whereby a user first makes
itself known to a CA (directly, or through an RA), prior to that
CA issuing a certificate or certificates for that user.
(b) initialization: Before a client system can operate securely
it is necessary to install key materials which have the
appropriate relationship with keys stored elsewhere in the
infrastructure. For example, the client needs to be securely
initialized with the public key and other assured information of
the trusted CA(s), to be used in validating certificate paths.
Furthermore, a client typically needs to be initialized with its
own key pair(s).
(c) certification: This is the process in which a CA issues a
certificate for a user's public key, and returns that certificate
to the user's client system and/or posts that certificate in a
repository.
(d) key pair recovery: As an option, user client key materials
(e.g., a user's private key used for encryption purposes) may be
backed up by a CA or a key backup system. If a user needs to
recover these backed up key materials (e.g., as a result of a
forgotten password or a lost key chain file), an on-line protocol
exchange may be needed to support such recovery.
(e) key pair update: All key pairs need to be updated regularly,
i.e., replaced with a new key pair, and new certificates issued.
(f) revocation request: An authorized person advises a CA of an
abnormal situation requiring certificate revocation.
(g) cross-certification: Two CAs exchange information used in
establishing a cross-certificate. A cross-certificate is a
certificate issued by one CA to another CA which contains a CA
signature key used for issuing certificates.
Note that on-line protocols are not the only way of implementing the
above functions. For all functions there are off-line methods of
achieving the same result, and this specification does not mandate
use of on-line protocols. For example, when hardware tokens are
used, many of the functions may be achieved as part of the physical
token delivery. Furthermore, some of the above functions may be
combined into one protocol exchange. In particular, two or more of
the registration, initialization, and certification functions can be
combined into one protocol exchange.
The PKIX series of specifications defines a set of standard message
formats supporting the above functions. The protocols for conveying
these messages in different environments (e.g., e-mail, file
transfer, and WWW) are described in those specifications.
4 Certificate and Certificate Extensions Profile
This section presents a profile for public key certificates that will
foster interoperability and a reusable PKI. This section is based
upon the X.509 v3 certificate format and the standard certificate
extensions defined in [X.509]. The ISO/IEC and ITU-T documents use
the 1997 version of ASN.1; while this document uses the 1988 ASN.1
syntax, the encoded certificate and standard extensions are
equivalent. This section also defines private extensions required to
support a PKI for the Internet community.
Certificates may be used in a wide range of applications and
environments covering a broad spectrum of interoperability goals and
a broader spectrum of operational and assurance requirements. The
goal of this document is to establish a common baseline for generic
applications requiring broad interoperability and limited special
purpose requirements. In particular, the emphasis will be on
supporting the use of X.509 v3 certificates for informal Internet
electronic mail, IPsec, and WWW applications.
4.1 Basic Certificate Fields
The X.509 v3 certificate basic syntax is as follows. For signature
calculation, the data that is to be signed is encoded using the ASN.1
distinguished encoding rules (DER) [X.690]. ASN.1 DER encoding is a
tag, length, value encoding system for each element.
Certificate ::= SEQUENCE {
tbsCertificate TBSCertificate,
signatureAlgorithm AlgorithmIdentifier,
signatureValue BIT STRING }
TBSCertificate ::= SEQUENCE {
version [0] EXPLICIT Version DEFAULT v1,
serialNumber CertificateSerialNumber,
signature AlgorithmIdentifier,
issuer Name,
validity Validity,
subject Name,
subjectPublicKeyInfo SubjectPublicKeyInfo,
issuerUniqueID [1] IMPLICIT UniqueIdentifier OPTIONAL,
-- If present, version MUST be v2 or v3
subjectUniqueID [2] IMPLICIT UniqueIdentifier OPTIONAL,
-- If present, version MUST be v2 or v3
extensions [3] EXPLICIT Extensions OPTIONAL
-- If present, version MUST be v3
}
Version ::= INTEGER { v1(0), v2(1), v3(2) }
CertificateSerialNumber ::= INTEGER
Validity ::= SEQUENCE {
notBefore Time,
notAfter Time }
Time ::= CHOICE {
utcTime UTCTime,
generalTime GeneralizedTime }
UniqueIdentifier ::= BIT STRING
SubjectPublicKeyInfo ::= SEQUENCE {
algorithm AlgorithmIdentifier,
subjectPublicKey BIT STRING }
Extensions ::= SEQUENCE SIZE (1..MAX) OF Extension
Extension ::= SEQUENCE {
extnID OBJECT IDENTIFIER,
critical BOOLEAN DEFAULT FALSE,
extnValue OCTET STRING }
The following items describe the X.509 v3 certificate for use in the
Internet.
4.1.1 Certificate Fields
The Certificate is a SEQUENCE of three required fields. The fields
are described in detail in the following subsections.
4.1.1.1 tbsCertificate
The field contains the names of the subject and issuer, a public key
associated with the subject, a validity period, and other associated
information. The fields are described in detail in section 4.1.2;
the tbsCertificate usually includes extensions which are described in
section 4.2.
4.1.1.2 signatureAlgorithm
The signatureAlgorithm field contains the identifier for the
cryptographic algorithm used by the CA to sign this certificate.
[PKIXALGS] lists supported signature algorithms, but other signature
algorithms MAY also be supported.
An algorithm identifier is defined by the following ASN.1 structure:
AlgorithmIdentifier ::= SEQUENCE {
algorithm OBJECT IDENTIFIER,
parameters ANY DEFINED BY algorithm OPTIONAL }
The algorithm identifier is used to identify a cryptographic
algorithm. The OBJECT IDENTIFIER component identifies the algorithm
(such as DSA with SHA-1). The contents of the optional parameters
field will vary according to the algorithm identified.
This field MUST contain the same algorithm identifier as the
signature field in the sequence tbsCertificate (section 4.1.2.3).
4.1.1.3 signatureValue
The signatureValue field contains a digital signature computed upon
the ASN.1 DER encoded tbsCertificate. The ASN.1 DER encoded
tbsCertificate is used as the input to the signature function. This
signature value is encoded as a BIT STRING and included in the
signature field. The details of this process are specified for each
of algorithms listed in [PKIXALGS].
By generating this signature, a CA certifies the validity of the
information in the tbsCertificate field. In particular, the CA
certifies the binding between the public key material and the subject
of the certificate.
4.1.2 TBSCertificate
The sequence TBSCertificate contains information associated with the
subject of the certificate and the CA who issued it. Every
TBSCertificate contains the names of the subject and issuer, a public
key associated with the subject, a validity period, a version number,
and a serial number; some MAY contain optional unique identifier
fields. The remainder of this section describes the syntax and
semantics of these fields. A TBSCertificate usually includes
extensions. Extensions for the Internet PKI are described in Section
4.2.
4.1.2.1 Version
This field describes the version of the encoded certificate. When
extensions are used, as expected in this profile, version MUST be 3
(value is 2). If no extensions are present, but a UniqueIdentifier
is present, the version SHOULD be 2 (value is 1); however version MAY
be 3. If only basic fields are present, the version SHOULD be 1 (the
value is omitted from the certificate as the default value); however
the version MAY be 2 or 3.
Implementations SHOULD be prepared to accept any version certificate.
At a minimum, conforming implementations MUST recognize version 3
certificates.
Generation of version 2 certificates is not expected by
implementations based on this profile.
4.1.2.2 Serial number
The serial number MUST be a positive integer assigned by the CA to
each certificate. It MUST be unique for each certificate issued by a
given CA (i.e., the issuer name and serial number identify a unique
certificate). CAs MUST force the serialNumber to be a non-negative
integer.
Given the uniqueness requirements above, serial numbers can be
expected to contain long integers. Certificate users MUST be able to
handle serialNumber values up to 20 octets. Conformant CAs MUST NOT
use serialNumber values longer than 20 octets.
Note: Non-conforming CAs may issue certificates with serial numbers
that are negative, or zero. Certificate users SHOULD be prepared to
gracefully handle such certificates.
4.1.2.3 Signature
This field contains the algorithm identifier for the algorithm used
by the CA to sign the certificate.
This field MUST contain the same algorithm identifier as the
signatureAlgorithm field in the sequence Certificate (section
4.1.1.2). The contents of the optional parameters field will vary
according to the algorithm identified. [PKIXALGS] lists the
supported signature algorithms, but other signature algorithms MAY
also be supported.
4.1.2.4 Issuer
The issuer field identifies the entity who has signed and issued the
certificate. The issuer field MUST contain a non-empty distinguished
name (DN). The issuer field is defined as the X.501 type Name
[X.501]. Name is defined by the following ASN.1 structures:
Name ::= CHOICE {
RDNSequence }
RDNSequence ::= SEQUENCE OF RelativeDistinguishedName
RelativeDistinguishedName ::=
SET OF AttributeTypeAndValue
AttributeTypeAndValue ::= SEQUENCE {
type AttributeType,
value AttributeValue }
AttributeType ::= OBJECT IDENTIFIER
AttributeValue ::= ANY DEFINED BY AttributeType
DirectoryString ::= CHOICE {
teletexString TeletexString (SIZE (1..MAX)),
printableString PrintableString (SIZE (1..MAX)),
universalString UniversalString (SIZE (1..MAX)),
utf8String UTF8String (SIZE (1..MAX)),
bmpString BMPString (SIZE (1..MAX)) }
The Name describes a hierarchical name composed of attributes, such
as country name, and corresponding values, such as US. The type of
the component AttributeValue is determined by the AttributeType; in
general it will be a DirectoryString.
The DirectoryString type is defined as a choice of PrintableString,
TeletexString, BMPString, UTF8String, and UniversalString. The
UTF8String encoding [RFC2279] is the preferred encoding, and all
certificates issued after December 31, 2003 MUST use the UTF8String
encoding of DirectoryString (except as noted below). Until that
date, conforming CAs MUST choose from the following options when
creating a distinguished name, including their own:
(a) if the character set is sufficient, the string MAY be
represented as a PrintableString;
(b) failing (a), if the BMPString character set is sufficient the
string MAY be represented as a BMPString; and
(c) failing (a) and (b), the string MUST be represented as a
UTF8String. If (a) or (b) is satisfied, the CA MAY still choose
to represent the string as a UTF8String.
Exceptions to the December 31, 2003 UTF8 encoding requirements are as
follows:
(a) CAs MAY issue "name rollover" certificates to support an
orderly migration to UTF8String encoding. Such certificates would
include the CA's UTF8String encoded name as issuer and and the old
name encoding as subject, or vice-versa.
(b) As stated in section 4.1.2.6, the subject field MUST be
populated with a non-empty distinguished name matching the
contents of the issuer field in all certificates issued by the
subject CA regardless of encoding.
The TeletexString and UniversalString are included for backward
compatibility, and SHOULD NOT be used for certificates for new
subjects. However, these types MAY be used in certificates where the
name was previously established. Certificate users SHOULD be
prepared to receive certificates with these types.
In addition, many legacy implementations support names encoded in the
ISO 8859-1 character set (Latin1String) [ISO 8859-1] but tag them as
TeletexString. TeletexString encodes a larger character set than ISO
8859-1, but it encodes some characters differently. Implementations
SHOULD be prepared to handle both encodings.
As noted above, distinguished names are composed of attributes. This
specification does not restrict the set of attribute types that may
appear in names. However, conforming implementations MUST be
prepared to receive certificates with issuer names containing the set
of attribute types defined below. This specification RECOMMENDS
support for additional attribute types.
Standard sets of attributes have been defined in the X.500 series of
specifications [X.520]. Implementations of this specification MUST
be prepared to receive the following standard attribute types in
issuer and subject (section 4.1.2.6) names:
* country,
* organization,
* organizational-unit,
* distinguished name qualifier,
* state or province name,
* common name (e.g., "Susan Housley"), and
* serial number.
In addition, implementations of this specification SHOULD be prepared
to receive the following standard attribute types in issuer and
subject names:
* locality,
* title,
* surname,
* given name,
* initials,
* pseudonym, and
* generation qualifier (e.g., "Jr.", "3rd", or "IV").
The syntax and associated object identifiers (OIDs) for these
attribute types are provided in the ASN.1 modules in Appendix A.
In addition, implementations of this specification MUST be prepared
to receive the domainComponent attribute, as defined in [RFC2247].
The Domain Name System (DNS) provides a hierarchical resource
labeling system. This attribute provides a convenient mechanism for
organizations that wish to use DNs that parallel their DNS names.
This is not a replacement for the dNSName component of the
alternative name field. Implementations are not required to convert
such names into DNS names. The syntax and associated OID for this
attribute type is provided in the ASN.1 modules in Appendix A.
Certificate users MUST be prepared to process the issuer
distinguished name and subject distinguished name (section 4.1.2.6)
fields to perform name chaining for certification path validation
(section 6). Name chaining is performed by matching the issuer
distinguished name in one certificate with the subject name in a CA
certificate.
This specification requires only a subset of the name comparison
functionality specified in the X.500 series of specifications.
Conforming implementations are REQUIRED to implement the following
name comparison rules:
(a) attribute values encoded in different types (e.g.,
PrintableString and BMPString) MAY be assumed to represent
different strings;
(b) attribute values in types other than PrintableString are case
sensitive (this permits matching of attribute values as binary
objects);
(c) attribute values in PrintableString are not case sensitive
(e.g., "Marianne Swanson" is the same as "MARIANNE SWANSON"); and
(d) attribute values in PrintableString are compared after
removing leading and trailing white space and converting internal
substrings of one or more consecutive white space characters to a
single space.
These name comparison rules permit a certificate user to validate
certificates issued using languages or encodings unfamiliar to the
certificate user.
In addition, implementations of this specification MAY use these
comparison rules to process unfamiliar attribute types for name
chaining. This allows implementations to process certificates with
unfamiliar attributes in the issuer name.
Note that the comparison rules defined in the X.500 series of
specifications indicate that the character sets used to encode data
in distinguished names are irrelevant. The characters themselves are
compared without regard to encoding. Implementations of this profile
are permitted to use the comparison algorithm defined in the X.500
series. Such an implementation will recognize a superset of name
matches recognized by the algorithm specified above.
4.1.2.5 Validity
The certificate validity period is the time interval during which the
CA warrants that it will maintain information about the status of the
certificate. The field is represented as a SEQUENCE of two dates:
the date on which the certificate validity period begins (notBefore)
and the date on which the certificate validity period ends
(notAfter). Both notBefore and notAfter may be encoded as UTCTime or
GeneralizedTime.
CAs conforming to this profile MUST always encode certificate
validity dates through the year 2049 as UTCTime; certificate validity
dates in 2050 or later MUST be encoded as GeneralizedTime.
The validity period for a certificate is the period of time from
notBefore through notAfter, inclusive.