Netscape Certificate Management System 6.2, Administrator'S Manual

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The SSL Handshake
842 Netscape Certificate Manager System Administrator’s Guide • June 2003
Figure K-3 Authentication and Verification of a Client Certificate
An SSL-enabled server goes through these steps to authenticate a user’s identity:
1.
Does the user’s public key validate the user’s digital signature? The server
checks that the user’s digital signature can be validated with the public key in
the certificate. If so, the server has established that the public key asserted to
belong to John Doe matches the private key used to create the signature and
that the data has not been tampered with since it was signed.
At this point, however, the binding between the public key and the DN
specified in the certificate has not yet been established. The certificate might
have been created by someone attempting to impersonate the user. To validate
the binding between the public key and the DN, the server must also complete
Step 3 and Step 4.
2.
Is today’s date within the validity period? The server checks the certificate’s
validity period. If the current date and time are outside of that range, the
authentication process won’t go any further. If the current date and time are
within the certificate’s validity period, the server goes on to Step 3.