From: Michael Kirk <mkirk@cisco.com>
Message-Id: <199703050009.LAA16728@metaplex-ss10.cisco.com>
Subject: Re: Do you have a X509 implementation ?
To: mrm@Eng
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 97 11:09:21 EST
In-Reply-To: <199703040714.XAA07031@puffin.eng.sun.com>; from "Marianne Mueller" at Mar 3, 97 11:14 pm
>
>
> > Does this mean they're unavailable independent of the JDK ?
> > I would like to use them...
>
> I don't understand the question exactly - the sun.security subpackages
> aren't supported by JavaSoft and are subject to change. I meant
> that although they are part of the implementation in the JDK, those
> APIs are not ones that we support, in terms of your developing
> applications to them.
The document I read made reference to these classes in a way that made
me think they were available for use:
"Implementations of various classes that are useful when using
java.security are available in other sun.security subpackages. This includes:
. Classes to handle X.509 Certificates.
. An arbitrary-precision arithmetic package.
. Utilities classes to encode and decode X.509 data
Unlike the sun.security.provider package, the classes in the other
sun.security subpackages can be accessed directly."
This passage was in the doc "Security in JDK1.1".
Classes to encode and decode X.509 data is exactly what I need at the
moment, so, subject to change or not, I would try to use them if they
were there. The question was whether they needed to be downloaded
separately or are they available already within the JDK, and whether
there is any documentation as to how to use them. I am writing
experimental rather than release software, so I don't mind if this
stuff changes. If the classes are there and can be used, however,
this would be helpful to me (in that I wouldn't have to write this
stuff myself).
>
> Please do let us know how you want to use the X509v3 APIs from Java,
> so if there is a particular profile you require, we learn of that
> sooner rather than later
I'm trying to write an SSL client in JAVA. (I'd prefer that to be
supported by core Java classes but that's another issue). I can
send a client hallo to an SSL server and get back a server hallo, and
a server certificate. I need to be able to decode this certificate to
continue the dialog.
If you have any software to do this, or to support SSL generally, I
would be happy to trial it and give feedback.
Michael
>
> Marianne.
>