Java Certification Path V1.0 for OS/390 Overview

Table of Contents

• Overview
• On line documentation
• Parts of Certification Path
• Using Certification Path
• Certification Path sample code
• Software prerequisites

Overview

The Java Certification Path defines a set of classes and interfaces to create, build and validate digital certification paths. A digital certificate is a data structure of the binding between a subject and a public key signed by a Certification Authority (CA). In practice, CA's may have their own certificates issued by a higher-level authority. To verify the binding, a valid chain of certificates must be found from end entity certificates up to a CA that is recognized and trusted. The process of validating certificate chains is an important part of PKI-enabled systems.

IBM provides the Java Certification Path as standard extension to the Java SDK 1.3 platform. Under the interfaces is IBM's implementation of X.509 certification path processing that is fully compliant with the 8th version of the Internet draft for PKI Certificate and CRL Profile.

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On line documentation

To download a copy of the documentation for the Java Certification Path (CertPath) for OS/390, download the certpathdocs.jar

The certpathdocs.jar files contain the following documents:

• javadocs index.html, a full list of all APIs
• javadocs allclasses-frame.html, a full list of all the classes
• The Java Certification Path API Programmer's Guide, API_users_guide.html

To extract the documentation from the downloaded .jar file, place the .jar file at the directory location where you would like the documentation (for instance the ${java-home}/docs/certpathDocs) and issue the following command:

    jar -xvf certpathdocs.jar

Note that the certpathdocs.jar file is actually a Java Archive (.jar) file that contains documentation only and no executable code. The jar command above will work whether the file type is .tar or .jar.

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Parts of Certification Path

The certpath.jar file is pre-installed in the ${java-home}/lib/ext directory.

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Using Certification Path

The following information shows how to use Certification Path:

• Certification Path uses services from the IBM PKCS package, which is pre-installed.
• The Java Certification Path APIs is based on cryptographic service provider architecture, which means you must install it as a service provider before you use it. This is done statically by editing the java.security file located in the following directory:

  ${java-home}/lib/security/java.security
  

  The security file should have a statement declaring provider and preference order. 1 is the most preferred order followed by 2 and so on.
• Specify the following in your java.security file in the ${java-home}/lib/security directory:
  • security.provider.1=sun.security.provider.Sun
  • security.provider.2=com.ibm.crypto.provider.IBMJCE
  • security.provider.3=com.ibm.security.cert.IBMCertPath
  The IBM JCE provider must be placed after the default Sun provider and the IBM CertPath provider should be listed after that.

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Certification Path sample code

The sample programs that demonstrate how to use Certification Path are located in the ${java-home}/demo/certpath/src directory.

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