PKCS7_verify
Section: OpenSSL (3)
Updated: 2017-05-25
Index
Return to Main Contents
NAME
PKCS7_verify, PKCS7_get0_signers - verify a PKCS#7 signedData structure
SYNOPSIS
#include <openssl/pkcs7.h>
int PKCS7_verify(PKCS7 *p7, STACK_OF(X509) *certs, X509_STORE *store, BIO *indata, BIO *out, int flags);
STACK_OF(X509) *PKCS7_get0_signers(PKCS7 *p7, STACK_OF(X509) *certs, int flags);
DESCRIPTION
PKCS7_verify() verifies a PKCS#7 signedData structure.
p7 is the
PKCS7
structure to verify.
certs is a set of certificates in which to search for
the signer's certificate.
store is a trusted certficate store (used for
chain verification).
indata is the signed data if the content is not
present in
p7 (that is it is detached). The content is written to
out
if it is not
NULL.
flags is an optional set of flags, which can be used to modify the verify
operation.
PKCS7_get0_signers() retrieves the signer's certificates from p7, it does
not check their validity or whether any signatures are valid. The certs
and flags parameters have the same meanings as in PKCS7_verify().
VERIFY PROCESS
Normally the verify process proceeds as follows.
Initially some sanity checks are performed on p7. The type of p7 must
be signedData. There must be at least one signature on the data and if
the content is detached indata cannot be NULL.
An attempt is made to locate all the signer's certificates, first looking in
the certs parameter (if it is not NULL) and then looking in any certificates
contained in the p7 structure itself. If any signer's certificates cannot be
located the operation fails.
Each signer's certificate is chain verified using the smimesign purpose and
the supplied trusted certificate store. Any internal certificates in the message
are used as untrusted CAs. If any chain verify fails an error code is returned.
Finally the signed content is read (and written to out is it is not NULL) and
the signature's checked.
If all signature's verify correctly then the function is successful.
Any of the following flags (ored together) can be passed in the flags parameter
to change the default verify behaviour. Only the flag PKCS7_NOINTERN is
meaningful to PKCS7_get0_signers().
If PKCS7_NOINTERN is set the certificates in the message itself are not
searched when locating the signer's certificate. This means that all the signers
certificates must be in the certs parameter.
If the PKCS7_TEXT flag is set MIME headers for type text/plain are deleted
from the content. If the content is not of type text/plain then an error is
returned.
If PKCS7_NOVERIFY is set the signer's certificates are not chain verified.
If PKCS7_NOCHAIN is set then the certificates contained in the message are
not used as untrusted CAs. This means that the whole verify chain (apart from
the signer's certificate) must be contained in the trusted store.
If PKCS7_NOSIGS is set then the signatures on the data are not checked.
NOTES
One application of
PKCS7_NOINTERN is to only accept messages signed by
a small number of certificates. The acceptable certificates would be passed
in the
certs parameter. In this case if the signer is not one of the
certificates supplied in
certs then the verify will fail because the
signer cannot be found.
Care should be taken when modifying the default verify behaviour, for example
setting PKCS7_NOVERIFY|PKCS7_NOSIGS will totally disable all verification
and any signed message will be considered valid. This combination is however
useful if one merely wishes to write the content to out and its validity
is not considered important.
Chain verification should arguably be performed using the signing time rather
than the current time. However since the signing time is supplied by the
signer it cannot be trusted without additional evidence (such as a trusted
timestamp).
RETURN VALUES
PKCS7_verify() returns one for a successful verification and zero
if an error occurs.
PKCS7_get0_signers() returns all signers or NULL if an error occurred.
The error can be obtained from ERR_get_error(3)
BUGS
The trusted certificate store is not searched for the signers certificate,
this is primarily due to the inadequacies of the current
X509_STORE
functionality.
The lack of single pass processing and need to hold all data in memory as
mentioned in PKCS7_sign() also applies to PKCS7_verify().
SEE ALSO
ERR_get_error(3),
PKCS7_sign(3)
HISTORY
PKCS7_verify() was added to OpenSSL 0.9.5
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- VERIFY PROCESS
-
- NOTES
-
- RETURN VALUES
-
- BUGS
-
- SEE ALSO
-
- HISTORY
-
|
|
- Running on 
-
:
: 