Package gnu.crypto.keyring

Provides a basic API for managing private and public authentication credentials stored in file objects.

Interface Summary

IKeyring The top-level interface to a keyring: a file that is used to store and protect public and private cryptographic keys.

A keyring is modelled as a mapping of one alias to one or more entries (optionally of different types).

See also the sub-interfaces IPublicKeyring and IPrivateKeyring for special types of keyrings --the difference being in the type of entries they contain.

IPrivateKeyring An interface to private, or "personal", keyrings, which contain private credentials.
IPublicKeyring An interface for keyrings that contain trusted (by the owner) public credentials (incl. certificates).
PasswordProtectedEntry

Class Summary

AuthenticatedEntry
BaseKeyring
BinaryDataEntry A binary data entry is a primitive entry that simply contains some amount of arbitrary binary data and an optional content type.
CertificateEntry An immutable class representing a trusted certificate entry.
CertPathEntry A primitive entry that contains a path of X.509 certificates.
CompressedEntry
EncryptedEntry
Entry An immutable class representing a single entry in a keyring.
EnvelopeEntry An envelope entry is a generic container for some number of primitive and other envelope entries.
GnuPrivateKeyring .
GnuPublicKeyring
MalformedKeyringException
MaskableEnvelopeEntry An envelope entry that can be "masked" -- placed in a state where the envelope's contents cannot be accessed, due to the envelope not being fully decoded, for example.
MeteredInputStream
PasswordAuthenticatedEntry An entry authenticated with a password-based MAC.
PasswordEncryptedEntry An envelope that is encrypted with a password-derived key.
PrimitiveEntry A primitive entry is an entry that contains a single cryptographic entity.
PrivateKeyEntry An immutable class representing a private or secret key entry.
Properties A set of (name => value) pairs used in keyring entries.
PublicKeyEntry
Provides a basic API for managing private and public authentication credentials stored in file objects.

Package overview

The GNU Keyring file format is a proposed standard file format for the long-term storage of cryptographic data, such as private keys and digital certificates. This format is being designed with the following goals:

The following two diagrams show the important classes participating in this package. The first one showing the toplevel objects (files) , while the second shows the classes representinf their contents:

../../../../diagrams/keyring1_class_diag.png" width=803 height=387 border=0>

../../../../diagrams/keyring2_class_diag.png" width=745 height=526 border=0>

The latest draft copy of the GNU Keyring proposal is available from the GNU Crypto home page. <!-- $Revision: 1.3 $ -->


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