Subject: [pkix] CA-EE interaction: how to get requirements for requests ?

From: Massimiliano Pala <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:02:15 -0500

Hello PKIx,

another question for the PKI practitioners out there :D When a client app
wants to request a certificate and/or renew a certificate, it faces the
problem of providing the required data to the CA.

I was wondering if any standardized process exists for the app to understand
what data is needed when submitting a certificate request to a CA.

AFAIK, today the process is initiated by the client app submitting a
request to the CA that can be rejected based on, for example, the lack
of some required field/authentication information.

It would be useful to add another round of `messages' and a standardized
format that would allow the application to retrieve the list of required
information from the CA. The information could then be retrieved from
some sources (local DB, the user, an external server) and put in the
request automatically.

What are the current solutions out there today (besides the obvious use
of HTML interfaces that work only with browsers... ) ? Are there standardized
solutions ?

-- 

Best Regards,

	Massimiliano Pala

--o------------------------------------------------------------------------
Massimiliano Pala [OpenCA Project Manager]                   [email-masked]
                                                  [email-masked]

Dartmouth Computer Science Dept               Home Phone: +1 (603) 369-9332
PKI/Trust Laboratory                          Work Phone: +1 (603) 646-8734
--o------------------------------------------------------------------------
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us
who do.
							   -- Isaac Asimov