One pattern that's emerging as popular is to publish (and periodically rotate) a JWK Set at an HTTPS endpoint and reference they key used for individual messages by kid. OpenID Connect uses that model - it's discussed in some more detail in section 10: http://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-core-1_0.html#SigEnc
There's not really much more info there but I discussed this a bit in a recent presentation I gave: http://www.slideshare.net/briandavidcampbell/i-left-my-jwt-in-san-jose/29 On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 10:42 AM, Sergey Beryozkin <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Richard and Justin > > Very helpful, many thanks ! > > Richard: thanks for the link, the idea of using JWK as a standard medium > for shipping the key (information) is something that helps to understand > why JWK is referred to so much in the specifications like JWE/JWS > > Justin: I'll try my best not to copy the Java code you linked too :-). > > Thanks for links to the examples, let me ask few questions below: > > > On 14/08/14 16:04, Justin Richer wrote: > >> Services are starting to publish their public keys as JWK instead of >> X509, since a JWK doesn't require a trusted CA and can be much more >> easily rotated at runtime. >> > Sorry if it is off-topic, is JWK representing a public key (the public > exponent) is effectively a self-signed public key/cert ? What provides the > extra trust into such JWK ? I've heard here about JWK Thumbprints ? > > > This is the class from our OAuth/OpenID >> Connect system that builds signers and validators off of a public-key >> JWK (using the Nimbus-DS JOSE library): >> >> https://github.com/mitreid-connect/OpenID-Connect-Java- >> Spring-Server/blob/master/openid-connect-common/src/ >> main/java/org/mitre/jwt/signer/service/impl/JWKSetCacheService.java >> >> >> To add to that, with the private/shared key components of JWK, it can be >> a very effective key store. Our OAuth server uses this for its keys, >> this is the class that reads the file and makes the keys available as >> Java key objects to the rest of the system: >> >> https://github.com/mitreid-connect/OpenID-Connect-Java- >> Spring-Server/blob/master/openid-connect-common/src/ >> main/java/org/mitre/jose/keystore/JWKSetKeyStore.java >> >> As you can see, these are both exceedingly simple classes because they >> simple read the URL (in the first case) or file (in the second case) and >> parse the JSON found there into a JWK set, which is then used to create >> the bare keys in the Java security framework. This is the RSA public key >> parser for example: >> >> https://bitbucket.org/connect2id/nimbus-jose-jwt/src/ >> 0d5b12b4d4b84c822bec4af368b3bea5120cb310/src/main/java/com/ >> nimbusds/jose/jwk/RSAKey.java?at=master#cl-1395 >> >> >> Finally, in order to make these keys more easy to deal with, we wrote a >> simple key generator program that will spin up a new RSA, EC, or Oct key >> and print it out as a JWK: >> >> https://github.com/mitreid-connect/json-web-key-generator >> >> >> Whenever we deploy a new copy of our server somewhere, we also pull down >> this program and run it to generate a new JWK key set (with public and >> private keys) that we use to start up the server. The alternative, which >> we used to do, was to use OpenSSL to generate a self-signed X509 >> certificate that we effectively threw away the trust chain for -- lots >> of extra effort to create information that we didn't want and then >> ignore it on the far end, all to get a simple keypair. It was >> unnecessarily complex from all ends, and the switch to JWK has been much >> nicer to deal with. >> >> Is the simplicity of making a demo application running fast a major > factor of preferring JWK to self-signed X509 ? What about the > synchronization between the existing X509-based key storage and the new > JWK-aware storages ? > > Thanks, Sergey > > -- Justin >> >> On 08/14/2014 09:25 AM, Richard Barnes wrote: >> >>> Hey Sergey, >>> >>> JWK isn't necessarily tied to JWE or JWS. It can be used to represent >>> the public key that was used to encrypt a JWE (so that the recipient >>> can look up the private key), or the public key that should be used to >>> verify a JWS. But it can also be used in other contexts. For >>> example, WebCrypto uses JWK (among others) as a format for serializing >>> keys. >>> https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/webcrypto-api/raw-file/tip/spec/Overview.html# >>> subtlecrypto-interface-datatypes >>> >>> As that link suggests, JWK is effectively the same as the PKCS#8 >>> format for private keys and the SubjectPublicKeyInfo format for public >>> keys -- just in JSON instead of ASN.1. It's a way to ship a key from >>> one place to another, for whatever reason you need to do that. >>> >>> Hope that helps, >>> --Richard >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 5:51 AM, Sergey Beryozkin >>> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >>> >>> Hi, >>> >>> This is very likely a newbie question. What is the role of JWK ? >>> According to [1] it is "... a (JSON) data structure that >>> represents a cryptographic key". >>> >>> I can see plenty examples of JWK in the JWE specification. JWS and >>> JWE headers can have a "jwk" property representing a given JWK. >>> >>> What confuses me is that the examples in JWE use JWK to describe >>> the private parts of a given key. For example, when we talk about >>> the RSA OAEP key encryption, JWK would show a private exponent of >>> a given RSA key (JWE A1). Same for Aes Wrap secret key (JWE A3). Etc. >>> >>> So clearly one would not use a "jwk" JWE header to pass around a >>> JWK representation of the key which was used to encrypt the >>> content encryption key. >>> >>> So I'm thinking a JWK is: >>> - a convenient way to describe a cryptographic key for JWE/JWS >>> specifications to refer to it in the spec examples. >>> - perhaps there's a long-term vision that the key stores would >>> support JWK format directly ? >>> - JWK is a 'container' for various key properties, some of those >>> 'public' properties can be passed around as a JWE/JWS header; >>> >>> Am I on the right track, can someone please clarify it further ? >>> >>> Thanks, Sergey >>> >>> >>> [1] >>> http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-jose-json-web-key-31#section-1 >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> jose mailing list >>> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> >>> >>> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/jose >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> jose mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/jose >>> >> >> > _______________________________________________ > jose mailing list > [email protected] > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/jose >
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