Internet Draft                                    Burt Kaliski
Expires March 16, 1998
<draft-hoffman-pkcs-certif-req-02.txt>

                 PKCS #10: Certification Request Syntax
                              Version 1.5

Status of this Memo

   This document is an Internet-Draft. Internet-Drafts are working
   documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas,
   and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   To learn the current status of any Internet-Draft, please check the
   "1id-abstracts.txt" listing contained in the Internet-Drafts Shadow
   Directories on ftp.is.co.za (Africa), nic.nordu.net (Europe),
   munnari.oz.au (Pacific Rim), ds.internic.net (US East Coast), or
   ftp.isi.edu (US West Coast).

   This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo
   does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of
   this memo is unlimited.

Overview

   This document describes a syntax for certification requests.

1. Scope

   A certification request consists of a distinguished name, a public
   key, and optionally a set of attributes, collectively signed by the
   entity requesting certification. Certification requests are sent to a
   certification authority, who transforms the request to an X.509
   public-key certificate, or a PKCS #6 extended certificate. (In what
   form the certification authority returns the newly signed certificate
   is outside the scope of this document. A PKCS #7 message is one
   possibility.)

   The intention of including a set of attributes is twofold: to provide
   other information about a given entity, such as the postal address to
   which the signed certificate should be returned if electronic mail is
   not available, or a "challenge password" by which the entity may



Burt Kaliski                                                    [Page 1]


RFC nnn          PKCS #10: Certification Request Syntax    November 1993


   later request certificate revocation; and to provide attributes for a
   PKCS #6 extended certificate. A non-exhaustive list of attributes is
   given in PKCS #9.

   Certification authorities may also require non-electronic forms of
   request and may return non-electronic replies. It is expected that
   descriptions of such forms, which are outside the scope of this
   document, will be available from the certification authority.

   The preliminary intended application of this document is to support
   PKCS #7 cryptographic messages, but is expected that other
   applications will be developed.

2. References

   PKCS #1   RSA Laboratories. PKCS #1: RSA Encryption
             Standard. Version 1.5, November 1993.

   PKCS #6   RSA Laboratories. PKCS #6: Extended-Certificate
             Syntax. Version 1.5, November 1993.

   PKCS #7   RSA Laboratories. PKCS #7: Cryptographic Message
             Syntax. Version 1.5, November 1993.

   PKCS #9   RSA Laboratories. PKCS #9: Selected Attribute
             Types. Version 1.1, November 1993.

   RFC 1424  B. Kaliski. RFC 1424: Privacy Enhancement for
             Internet Electronic Mail: Part IV: Key
             Certification and Related Services. February 1993.

   X.208     CCITT. Recommendation X.208: Specification of
             Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1). 1988.

   X.209     CCITT. Recommendation X.209: Specification of
             Basic Encoding Rules for Abstract Syntax Notation
             One (ASN.1). 1988.

   X.500     CCITT. Recommendation X.500: The Directory--
             Overview of Concepts, Models and
             Services. 1988.

   X.501     CCITT. Recommendation X.501: The Directory--
             Models. 1988.

   X.509     CCITT. Recommendation X.509: The Directory--
             Authentication Framework. 1988.




Burt Kaliski                                                    [Page 2]


RFC nnn          PKCS #10: Certification Request Syntax    November 1993


3. Definitions

   For the purposes of this document, the following definitions apply.

   AlgorithmIdentifier: A type that identifies an algorithm (by object
   identifier) and any associated parameters. This type is defined in
   X.509.

   Attribute: A type that contains an attribute type (specified by
   object identifier) and one or more attribute values. This type is
   defined in X.501.

   ASN.1: Abstract Syntax Notation One, as defined in X.208.

   BER: Basic Encoding Rules, as defined in X.209.

   Certificate: A type that binds an entity's distinguished name to a
   public key with a digital signature. This type is defined in X.509.
   This type also contains the distinguished name of the certificate
   issuer (the signer), an issuer- specific serial number, the issuer's
   signature algorithm identifier, and a validity period.

   DER: Distinguished Encoding Rules for ASN.1, as defined in X.509,
   Section 8.7.

   Name: A type that uniquely identifies or "distinguishes" objects in a
   X.500 directory. This type is defined in X.501.  In an X.509
   certificate, the type identifies the certificate issuer and the
   entity whose public key is certified.

4. Symbols and abbreviations

   No symbols or abbreviations are defined in this document.

5. General overview

   The next section specifies certification request syntax.

   This document exports one type, CertificationRequest.

6. Certification request syntax

   This section gives the syntax for certification requests.

   A certification request consists of three parts: "certification
   request information," a signature algorithm identifier, and a digital
   signature on the certification request information. The certification
   request information consists of the entity's distinguished name, the



Burt Kaliski                                                    [Page 3]


RFC nnn          PKCS #10: Certification Request Syntax    November 1993


   entity's public key, and a set of attributes providing other
   information about the entity.

   The process by which a certification request is constructed involves
   the following steps:

        1.   A CertificationRequestInfo value containing a
             distinguished name, a public key, and optionally a
             set of attributes is constructed by an entity.

        2.   The CertificationRequestInfo value is signed with
             the entity's private key. (See Section 6.2.)

        3.   The CertificationRequestInfo value, a signature
             algorithm identifier, and the entity's signature
             are collected together into a CertificationRequest
             value, defined below.

   A certification authority fulfills the request by verifying the
   entity's signature, and, if it is valid, constructing a X.509
   certificate from the distinguished name and public key, as well as an
   issuer name, serial number, validity period, and signature algorithm
   of the certification authority's choice. If the certification request
   contains a PKCS #9 extended-certificate-attributes attribute, the
   certification authority also constructs a PKCS #6 extended
   certificate from the X.509 certificate and the extended- certificate-
   attributes attribute value.

   In what form the certification authority returns the new certificate
   is outside the scope of this document. One possibility is a PKCS #7
   cryptographic message with content type signedData, following the
   degenerate case where there are no signers. The return message may
   include a certification path from the new certificate to the
   certification authority. It may also include other certificates such
   as cross-certificates that the certification authority considers
   helpful, and it may include certificate-revocation lists (CRLs).
   Another possibility is that the certification authority inserts the
   new certificate into a central database.

   This section is divided into two parts. The first part describes the
   certification-request-information type CertificationRequestInfo, and
   the second part describes the top-level type CertificationRequest.


   Notes.

        1.   An entity would typically send a certification
             request after generating a public-key/private-key



Burt Kaliski                                                    [Page 4]


RFC nnn          PKCS #10: Certification Request Syntax    November 1993


             pair, but may also do so after a change in the
             entity's distinguished name.

        2.   The signature on the certification request
             prevents an entity from requesting a certificate
             with another party's public key. Such an attack
             would give the entity the minor ability to pretend
             to be the originator of any message signed by the
             other party. This attack is significant only if
             the entity does not know the message being signed,
             and the signed part of the message does not
             identify the signer. The entity would still not be
             able to decrypt messages intended for the other
             party, of course.

        3.   How the entity sends the certification request to
             a certification authority is outside the scope of
             this document. Both paper and electronic forms are
             possible.

        4.   This document is not compatible with the
             certification request syntax for Privacy-Enhanced
             Mail, as described in RFC 1424. The syntax in this
             document differs in three respects: It allows a
             set of attributes; it does not include issuer
             name, serial number, or validity period; and it
             does not require an "innocuous" message to be
             signed. The syntax in this document is designed to
             minimize request size, an important constraint for
             those certification authorities accepting requests
             on paper.

6.1 CertificationRequestInfo

   Certification request information shall have ASN.1 type
   CertificationRequestInfo:

   CertificationRequestInfo ::= SEQUENCE {
     version Version,
     subject Name,
     subjectPublicKeyInfo SubjectPublicKeyInfo,
     attributes [0] IMPLICIT Attributes }

   Version ::= INTEGER

   Attributes ::= SET OF Attribute

   The fields of type CertificationRequestInfo have the following



Burt Kaliski                                                    [Page 5]


RFC nnn          PKCS #10: Certification Request Syntax    November 1993


   meanings:

        o    version is the version number, for compatibility
             with future revisions of this document. It shall
             be 0 for this version of the document.

        o    subject is the distinguished name of the
             certificate subject (the entity whose public key
             is to be certified).

        o    subjectPublicKeyInfo contains information about
             the public key being certified. The information
             identifies the entity's public-key algorithm (and
             any associated parameters); examples of public-key
             algorithms include X.509's rsa and PKCS #1's
             rsaEncryption. The information also includes a bit-
             string representation of the entity's public key.
             For both public-key algorithms just mentioned, the
             bit string contains the BER encoding of a value of
             X.509/PKCS #1 type RSAPublicKey.

        o    attributes is a set of attributes providing
             additional information about the subject of the
             certificate. Some attribute types that might be
             useful here are defined in PKCS #9. An example is
             the challenge-password attribute, which specifies
             a password by which the entity may request that
             the certificate revocation. Another example is the
             extended-certificate-attributes attribute, which
             specifies attributes for a PKCS #6 extended
             certificate.

6.2 CertificationRequest

   A certification request shall have ASN.1 type CertificationRequest:

   CertificationRequest ::= SEQUENCE {
     certificationRequestInfo CertificationRequestInfo,
     signatureAlgorithm SignatureAlgorithmIdentifier,
     signature Signature }

   SignatureAlgorithmIdentifier ::= AlgorithmIdentifier

   Signature ::= BIT STRING

   The fields of type CertificationRequest have the following meanings:

        o    certificateRequestInfo is the "certification



Burt Kaliski                                                    [Page 6]


RFC nnn          PKCS #10: Certification Request Syntax    November 1993


             request information." It is the value being
             signed.

        o    signatureAlgorithm identifies the signature
             algorithm (and any associated parameters) under
             which the certification-request information is
             signed. Examples include PKCS #1's
             md2WithRSAEncryption and md5WithRSAEncryption.

        o    signature is the result of signing the
             certification request information with the
             certification request subject's private key.

   The signature process consists of two steps:

        1.   The value of the certificationRequestInfo field is
             DER encoded, yielding an octet string.

        2.   The result of step 1 is signed with the
             certification request subject's private key under
             the specified signature algorithm, yielding a bit
             string, the signature.

   Note. The syntax for CertificationRequest could equivalently be
   written with the X.509 SIGNED macro:

   CertificationRequest ::= SIGNED CertificateRequestInfo

Revision history


   Version 1.0

   Version 1.0 is the initial version.

Copyright

   Copyright (c) 1991-1993 RSA Laboratories, a division of RSA Data
   Security, Inc.  Any substantial use of the text from this document
   must acknowledge RSA Data Security, Inc. RSA Data Security, Inc.
   requests that all material mentioning or referencing this document
   identify this as "RSA Data Security, Inc. PKCS #10".

Author's Address

   Burt Kaliski
   RSA Laboratories East
   20 Crosby Drive



Burt Kaliski                                                    [Page 7]


RFC nnn          PKCS #10: Certification Request Syntax    November 1993


   Bedford, MA  01730
   (617) 687-7000
   burt@rsa.com
















































Burt Kaliski                                                    [Page 8]