Interface for an X.509 extension.
The extensions defined for X.509 v3
{@link X509Certificate Certificates} and v2
{@link X509CRL CRLs} (Certificate Revocation
Lists) provide methods
for associating additional attributes with users or public keys,
for managing the certification hierarchy, and for managing CRL
distribution. The X.509 extensions format also allows communities
to define private extensions to carry information unique to those
communities.
Each extension in a certificate/CRL may be designated as
critical or non-critical. A certificate/CRL-using system (an application
validating a certificate/CRL) must reject the certificate/CRL if it
encounters a critical extension it does not recognize. A non-critical
extension may be ignored if it is not recognized.
The ASN.1 definition for this is:
Extensions ::= SEQUENCE SIZE (1..MAX) OF Extension
Extension ::= SEQUENCE {
extnId OBJECT IDENTIFIER,
critical BOOLEAN DEFAULT FALSE,
extnValue OCTET STRING
-- contains a DER encoding of a value
-- of the type registered for use with
-- the extnId object identifier value
}
Since not all extensions are known, the getExtensionValue
method returns the DER-encoded OCTET STRING of the
extension value (i.e., the extnValue ). This can then
be handled by a Class that understands the extension. |