| .. _NDN Certificate Format Version 2.0: |
| |
| NDN Certificate Format Version 2.0 |
| ================================== |
| |
| .. contents:: |
| |
| Since signature verification is a common operation in NDN applications, it is |
| important to define a common certificate format to standardize the public key |
| authentication procedure. As every NDN data packet is signed, a data packet |
| that carries a public key as content is conceptually a certificate. However, |
| the specification of a data packet is not sufficient to be the specification of |
| a common certificate format, as it requires additional components. For example, |
| a certificate may follow a specific naming convention and may need to include |
| validity period, revocation information, etc. This specification defines |
| naming and structure of the NDN certificates and is complementary to NDN packet |
| specification. |
| |
| :: |
| |
| Overview of NDN certificate format |
| +--------------------------+ |
| | Name | |
| +--------------------------+ |
| | MetaInfo | |
| |+------------------------+| |
| || ContentType: KEY(2) || |
| |+------------------------+| |
| |+------------------------+| |
| || FreshnessPeriod: >~ 1h || |
| |+------------------------+| |
| +--------------------------+ |
| | Content | |
| |+------------------------+| |
| || Public Key || |
| |+------------------------+| |
| +--------------------------+ |
| | SignatureInfo | |
| |+------------------------+| |
| || SignatureType: ... || |
| || KeyLocator: ... || |
| || ValidityPeriod: ... || |
| || ... || |
| |+------------------------+| |
| +--------------------------+ |
| | SignatureValue | |
| +--------------------------+ |
| |
| |
| CertificateV2 = DATA-TYPE TLV-LENGTH |
| Name ; /<NameSpace>/KEY/[KeyId]/[IssuerId]/[Version] |
| MetaInfo ; ContentType = KEY, FreshnessPeriod required |
| Content ; X509PublicKey |
| CertificateV2SignatureInfo |
| SignatureValue |
| |
| CertificateV2SignatureInfo = SIGNATURE-INFO-TYPE TLV-LENGTH |
| SignatureType |
| KeyLocator |
| ValidityPeriod |
| *CertificateV2Extension |
| |
| |
| Name |
| ---- |
| |
| The name of a certificate consists of five parts as shown below: |
| |
| :: |
| |
| /<SubjectName>/KEY/[KeyId]/[IssuerId]/[Version] |
| |
| A certificate name starts with the subject to which a public key is bound. The following parts |
| include the keyword ``KEY`` component, KeyId, IssuerId, and version components. |
| |
| ``KeyId`` is an opaque name component to identify an instance of the public key for the |
| certificate namespace. The value of `Key ID` is controlled by the namespace owner and can be |
| an 8-byte random number, SHA-256 digest of the public key, timestamp, or a simple numerical |
| identifier. |
| |
| ``Issuer Id`` is an opaque name component to identify issuer of the certificate. The value is |
| controlled by the certificate issuer and, similar to KeyId, can be an 8-byte random number, |
| SHA-256 digest of the issuer's public key, or a simple numerical identifier. |
| |
| |
| For example, |
| |
| :: |
| |
| /edu/ucla/cs/yingdi/KEY/%03%CD...%F1/%9F%D3...%B7/%FD%d2...%8E |
| \_________________/ \___________/ \___________/\___________/ |
| Certificate Namespace Key Id Issuer Id Version |
| (Identity) |
| |
| |
| MetaInfo |
| -------- |
| |
| The ``ContentType`` of certificate is set to ``KEY`` (2). |
| |
| The ``FreshnessPeriod`` of certificate must be explicitly specified. The |
| recommended value is 1 hour (3,600,000 milliseconds). |
| |
| Content |
| ------- |
| |
| By default, the content of a certificate is the public key encoded in |
| `X509PublicKey <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5280#section-4.1.2.7>`__ format. |
| |
| SignatureInfo |
| ------------- |
| |
| The SignatureInfo block of a certificate is required to include the ``ValidityPeriod`` field. |
| ``ValidityPeriod`` includes two sub TLV fields: ``NotBefore`` and ``NotAfter``, which carry two |
| UTC timestamps in ISO 8601 compact format (``yyyymmddTHHMMSS``, e.g., "20020131T235959"). |
| ``NotBefore`` indicates when the certificate takes effect while ``NotAfter`` indicates when the |
| certificate expires. |
| |
| .. note:: |
| Using ISO style string is the convention of specifying the validity period of certificate, |
| which has been adopted by many certificate systems, such as X.509, PGP, and DNSSEC. |
| |
| :: |
| |
| ValidityPeriod = VALIDITY-PERIOD-TYPE TLV-LENGTH |
| NotBefore |
| NotAfter |
| |
| NotBefore = NOT-BEFORE-TYPE TLV-LENGTH 8DIGIT "T" 6DIGIT |
| |
| NotAfter = NOT-AFTER-TYPE TLV-LENGTH 8DIGIT "T" 6DIGIT |
| |
| For each TLV, the TLV-TYPE codes are assigned as below: |
| |
| +---------------------------------------------+-------------------+----------------+ |
| | TLV-TYPE | Assigned code | Assigned code | |
| | | (decimal) | (hexadecimal) | |
| +=============================================+===================+================+ |
| | ValidityPeriod | 253 | 0xFD | |
| +---------------------------------------------+-------------------+----------------+ |
| | NotBefore | 254 | 0xFE | |
| +---------------------------------------------+-------------------+----------------+ |
| | NotAfter | 255 | 0xFF | |
| +---------------------------------------------+-------------------+----------------+ |
| |
| Extensions |
| ~~~~~~~~~~ |
| |
| A certificate may optionally carry some extensions in SignatureInfo. An extension |
| could be either critical or non-critical depends on the TLV-TYPE code convention. A |
| critical extension implies that if a validator cannot recognize or parse the |
| extension, the validator must reject the certificate. A non-critical extension |
| implies that if a validator cannot recognize or cannot parse the extension, the |
| validator may ignore the extension. |
| |
| The TLV-TYPE code range [256, 512) is reserved for extensions. The last bit of a |
| TLV-TYPE code indicates whether the extension is critical or not: ``1`` for critical |
| while ``0`` for non-critical. If an extension could be either critical or |
| non-critical, the extension should be allocated with two TLV-TYPE codes which only |
| differ at the last bit. |
| |
| Extensions |
| ---------- |
| |
| We list currently defined extensions: |
| |
| +---------------------------------------------+-------------------+----------------+ |
| | TLV-TYPE | Assigned number | Assigned number| |
| | | (decimal) | (hexadecimal) | |
| +=============================================+===================+================+ |
| | AdditionalDescription (non-critical) | 258 | 0x0102 | |
| +---------------------------------------------+-------------------+----------------+ |
| |
| AdditionalDescription |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| |
| ``AdditionalDescription`` is a non-critical extension that provides additional |
| information about the certificate. The information is expressed as a set of |
| key-value pairs. Both key and value are UTF-8 strings, e.g., |
| ``("Organization", "UCLA")``. The issuer of a certificate can specify arbitrary |
| key-value pair to provide additional description about the certificate. |
| |
| :: |
| |
| CertificateV2Extension = AdditionalDescription |
| |
| AdditionalDescription = ADDITIONAL-DESCRIPTION-TYPE TLV-LENGTH |
| 1*DescriptionEntry |
| |
| DescriptionEntry = DESCRIPTION-ENTRY-TYPE TLV-LENGTH |
| DescriptionKey |
| DescriptionValue |
| |
| DescriptionKey = DESCRIPTION-KEY-TYPE TLV-LENGTH 1*OCTET |
| |
| DescriptionValue = DESCRIPTION-VALUE-TYPE TLV-LENGTH 1*OCTET |
| |
| +---------------------------------------------+-------------------+----------------+ |
| | TLV-TYPE | Assigned number | Assigned number| |
| | | (decimal) | (hexadecimal) | |
| +=============================================+===================+================+ |
| | DescriptionEntry | 512 | 0x0200 | |
| +---------------------------------------------+-------------------+----------------+ |
| | DescriptionKey | 513 | 0x0201 | |
| +---------------------------------------------+-------------------+----------------+ |
| | DescriptionValue | 514 | 0x0202 | |
| +---------------------------------------------+-------------------+----------------+ |