CA Certificates and Extension Interactions
Appendix
G
Certificate and CRL Extensions
743
A certificate chain generally consists of an entity certificate, zero or more
intermediate CA certificates, and a root CA certificate. Typically the root CA
certificate is self-signed and is loaded into Communicator’s certificate database as a
trusted CA.
An exchange of certificates takes place when performing an SSL handshake, when
sending an S/MIME message, or when sending a signed object. As part of the
handshake, the sender is expected to send the subject certificate and any
intermediate CA certificates needed to link the subject certificate to the trusted
root. For certificate chaining to work properly the certificates should have the
following properties:
•
CA certificates must have either the
basicConstraints
extension, the
netscape-cert-type
extension with one or more CA bits set, or both, as
described above.
•
If CAs issue multiple certificates for the same identity, for example for separate
signing and encryption keys, they must include the
keyUsage
extension in the
subject certificates.
Extensions Present
Description
Only
basicConstraints
The certificate is a CA certificate if the
cA
component is true.
Path length processing is done as described above.
Only
netscape-cert-type
The certificate is a CA if at least one of the CA bits is set: SSL
CA (5), S/MIME CA (6), or object-signing CA (7). The
certificates issued by this CA are limited to the particular
applications specified. Path length processing is done as
though the
pathLenConstraint
is unlimited.
Neither extension
The certificate is not a CA.
Both extensions
The certificate is a CA certificate if the
cA
component of
basicConstraints
is true. If one or more of the SSL CA
(5), S/MIME CA (6), or object-signing CA (7) bits are set in
the
netscape-cert-type
extension, then the CA will be
limited to issuing certificates for the specified application
areas; otherwise, the CA can issue certificates for any
application.
Summary of Contents for Certificate Management System 6.1
Page 1: ...Administrator s Guide Netscape Certificate Management System Version6 1 February 2003...
Page 28: ...Documentation 28 Netscape Certificate Management System Administrator s Guide February 2003...
Page 82: ...Uninstalling CMS 82 Netscape Certificate Management System Administrator s Guide February 2003...
Page 382: ...ACL Reference 382 Netscape Certificate Management System Administrator s Guide February 2003...
Page 794: ...Managing Certificates 794 Managing Servers with Netscape Console December 2001...
Page 810: ...The SSL Handshake 810 Managing Servers with Netscape Console December 2001...
Page 828: ...828 Netscape Certificate Management System Administrator s Guide February 2003...