NAME¶
SPKI - Simple Public Key Infrastructure formats
DESCRIPTION¶
The IETF Simple Public Key Infrastructure Working Group has defined a format for
storing, transmitting and manipulating certificates to support security in a
wide range of Internet applications which will require the use of public key
certificates.
For the definition of the SPKI format, please refer to
[SPKI].
The format of SPKI objects is a simplified form of S-expression. An S-expression
is a list enclosed in matching "(" and ")", similar to the
recursive list data structure in of the LISP and Scheme programming languages.
Canonical S-expression¶
A canonical S-expression is a unique representation of an S-expression which may
contain arbitrary binary byte strings. For transport over a 7-bit channel, it
may be base64 (see
[RFC2045]) encoded.
Advanced S-expression¶
The advanced S-expression format is a complexer form of an S-expression which is
not necessarily unique. It is more suited for human reading than the canonical
S-expression format.
EXAMPLE¶
Examples SPKI certificates can be found in
[SPKI].
REFERENCES¶
- <URL:http://www.clark.net/pub/cme/html/spki.html>
- Home-page of the IETF SPKI working group.
- <URL:http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~rivest/sexp.html>
- Home-page of the S-expression technology.
Carl M. Ellison,
SPKI Requirements, Internet draft,
<URL:http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-spki-cert-req-02.txt>,
24 October 1998.
[SPKI] Carl M. Ellison, Bill Frantz, Butler Lampson, Ron Rivest, Brian M.
Thomas and Tatu Ylonen,
Simple Public Key Certificate, Internet draft
(expired),
<URL:http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-spki-cert-structure-05.txt>,
13 March 1998.
Carl M. Ellison, Bill Frantz, Butler Lampson, Ron Rivest, Brian M. Thomas and
Tatu Ylonen,
SPKI Certificate Theory, Internet draft,
<URL:http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-spki-cert-theory-04.txt>,
17 November 1998.
Carl M. Ellison, Bill Frantz, Butler Lampson, Ron Rivest, Brian M. Thomas and
Tatu Ylonen,
SPKI Examples, Internet draft (expired),
<URL:http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-spki-cert-examples-01.txt>,
10 March 1998.
[RFC2045] N. Freed and N. Borenstein,
Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions (MIME) Part One: Format of Internet Message Bodies, 2
December 1996.
AUTHOR¶
This man-page was written by J.H.M. Dassen (Ray)
<jdassen@wi.LeidenUniv.nl>.
SEE ALSO¶
lsh_keygen(1)
