Hello Vineet:

On October 15, 2008 02:40:52 pm Vineet Kumar wrote:
> I was browsing through NIST's "Conformance Testing of Relying Party
> Client Certificate Path Processing Logic" document  where I am not
> sure whether "Test 19" has the correct conformance expectation:
> --- Test 19--
> The following path should not be successfully validated; it contains a
> path without
> revocation data:
> Trust Anchor CP.01.01, Trust Anchor CRL CP.01.01, Intermediate
> Certificate CP.05.01,
> End Certificate CP.05.01
> ----
>
So - what the chain is is:

Trust Anchor (with a CRL that could have the Intermediate Cert in it)
Intermediate Cert (with *no* CRL that could have the end certificate in it)
End Certificate.

> What the above test-case says is the following:
> 1. There is a 3 level cert-chain:
> TrustAnchor(root)-->IntermediateCert#37-->EndCert#38
> 2. There is a CRL signed by the same root as above and having only one
> entry: that of an intermediate CA Ca1-06.01(#39) not part of the above
> chain.
>
> But then this is what RFC3280(Certs & CRL Policies) says:
> 6.3.2  Initialization and Revocation State Variables .......
>       (b)  cert_status:  ..... This variable is initialized to the
> special value UNREVOKED.
>
> 6.3.3  CRL Processing
>
>    This algorithm begins by assuming the certificate is not revoked.
>    The algorithm checks one or more CRLs until either the certificate
>    status is determined to be revoked or sufficient CRLs have been
>    checked to cover all reason codes.
>
>
> Taking the snips from sections 6.3.2 and 6.3.3 above, it is evident
> that absence of a cert's entry from the CRL means accept the cert. But
> the doc says reject it because "it contains a path without
> revocation data". What am I missing?
>
Well, as I hinted at above, there is no revocation information available for 
the end certificate itself (the Intermediate Certificate is not publishing a 
CRL). Thus, if you are using strict revocation information checking, the 
above chain should fail, because you can't look up the status of the end 
certificate.

If you want a good example of code for a PDVal tool that implements all of the 
tests in the NIST suite, please take a look at Pathfinder - it's available 
at:

http://www.carillon.ca/tools.php

Have fun.

-- 
Patrick Patterson
President and Chief PKI Architect,
Carillon Information Security Inc.
http://www.carillon.ca
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