[apps-discuss] PKIX text encodings

[Simon Josefsson <[e-mail]>]

Folks,

See announcement below for a document that attempts to describe the
de-facto deployed usage of so called "PEM encoding" of X.509 related
data blobs, including the '-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----' format.  Many
applications and security libraries rely on these formats, but to my
knowledge they have never been standardized and there is unfortunately
some confusion and ambiguity as a result.

https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-josefsson-pkix-textual

As usual, comments and suggestions are appreciated.  I'm not certain
what fora is best for discussing the document, but I suspect the apps
area group may be an appropriate venue, thus I'm adding an appropriate
Mail-Followup-To header.  If anyone believes discussion is inappropriate
there, I'm happy to move the discussion elsewhere.

If someone remembers the history around how the format was created,
anecdotal or otherwise, that would also be helpful.

Thanks,
Simon

[e-mail] writes:

> A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts directories.
>
> 	Title           : Text Encodings of Some Security Related Structures
> 	Author(s)       : Simon Josefsson
> 	Filename        : draft-josefsson-pkix-textual-00.txt
> 	Pages           : 10
> 	Date            : 2012-01-27
>
>    This document describe and discuss the text encodings of Public-Key
>    Infrastructure using X.509 (PKIX) Certificates, PKIX Certificate
>    Revocation Lists (CRLs), PKCS #10 Certificate Request Syntax, PKCS #7
>    structures, and Attribute Certificates.  The text encodings are well-
>    known, implemented by several applications and libraries, and is
>    widely deployed.  This document is intended to articulate the de-
>    facto rules that existing implementations operate by, and to give
>    recommendations that will promote interoperability going forward.
>
>
> A URL for this Internet-Draft is:
> http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-josefsson-pkix-textual-00.txt
>
> Internet-Drafts are also available by anonymous FTP at:
> ftp://ftp.ietf.org/internet-drafts/
>
> This Internet-Draft can be retrieved at:
> ftp://ftp.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-josefsson-pkix-textual-00.txt