You can use your custom PKCS11 config and as long as you call the
KeyStore API to store the key (generated as session key) under the
desired alias, it will be saved as a token key as a result.
Have you tried it and see if this solves your problem?
Valerie
On 04/19/10 08:08, Tomas Gustavsson wrote:
If we need it it's usually for all keys, both RSA and EC.
Cheers,
Tomas
"Michael StJohns" <mstjo...@comcast.net> wrote:
At 04:34 AM 4/19/2010, Tomas Gustavsson wrote:
Hi,
Sorry being late, I was away on vacation.
Yes in most cases we do use a custom PKCS11 config fil, with token=yes. If we
specify token=false would it still be a token object on the HSM finally?
Yes. The C_CopyObject turns the Session object into a Token object. and that
happens as a side effect of the KeyStore.store operation.
For most HSMs we need to use a cusom PCKS11 config file, otherwise it is not
possible to generate key because the HSM will throw an error, usually
invalid_template.
Does this happen for all keys or just for EC keys?
Cheers,
Tomas
Valerie (Yu-Ching) Peng wrote:
If the default PKCS11 config is used, I'd expect that KeyPairGenerator to generate a
"session" key and then SunPKCS11 keystore impl will do a C_CopyObject(...) w/
the desired alias.
Is a custom PKCS11 config file used here? If yes, perhaps it specifies that
token key be generated for key generation?
Valerie
On 03/31/10 17:51, Michael StJohns wrote:
KeyPairGenerator should be generating a "Session" key pair.
When you write the key store object, the underlying function should do a
C_CopyObject from the Session object to a Token object. (Or from a software
key to a Token object). At that point, the template provided to C_CopyObject
should be able to reset the CKA_LABEL attribute to the alias.
Let me look at the code and see what's going on and make further comments
tomorrow.
Mike
At 03:26 AM 3/31/2010, Tomas Gustavsson wrote:
Hi,
Sorry if I misunderstood you. That is actually exactly how we do it,
1. Use KeyPairGenerator with P11 provider to generate key pair.
2. Create a keystore with the P11 provier.
3. Generate a self signed certificate.
4. keystore.setKeyEntry(myalias, privateKey, null, cert).
The keys work fine to use in java. The issue is that in the HSM three objects
are generated/stored.
1. Private key - no alias
2. Public key - no alias
3. Certificate - myalias
The reason for this is that the alias of the private and public keys are set in
the HSM when the keys are generated (with the KeyPairGenerator). The HSMs do
not allow an alias of a private key (in particular) to be changed after
generation, so setKeyEntry can not change the empty alias of the private key
object.
This has been confirmed by technicians at AEP, but it works the same in
nCipher, SafeNet and Utimaco, i.e. no alias on the private key object.
If we want to use HSM vendors tools to manipulate objects this usually causes
problems because they mostly rely on an alias.
So finally :-) this is why an alias parameter to KeyPairGenerator would be
useful.
Cheers,
Tomas
On 03/30/2010 08:34 PM, Valerie (Yu-Ching) Peng wrote:
Why do you assume that the key is generated in software?
You use the KeyGenerator API to generate a key, this key can be
generated on the HSM if you have SunPKCS11 provider configured to be the
most preferred provider. This key should actually just encapsulate the
native key handle (not the actual value/encoding) which you can then
pass it to the KeyStore API and specify an alias. The PKCS11 keystore
impl would then take this key object (with the native key handle) and
create a persistent copy on the HSM with the specified alias.
Regards,
Valerie
On 03/29/10 22:57, Tomas Gustavsson wrote:
Hi, thanks for the answer.
Generating a key in software and trying to store it on the HSM violates
the whole idea of using an HSM. Which is to generate and maintain the
keys in the HSM at all times.
Most high security policies *requires* that the keys are generated by
the HSM, inside the HSM.
I also doubt that it would work to store software generated keys using
the keytool API. Many HSMs even forbid this, at least when running in
strict FIPS mode.
Regards,
Tomas
Valerie Peng wrote:
Have you tried saving that key through the KeyStore API which allows you
to specify an alias?
Thanks,
Valerie
On 03/26/10 00:05, Tomas Gustavsson wrote:
Slightly off topic.
Something I would like to see is API support for setting aliases when
using the KeyPairGenerator. This is due to the fact that many HSMs do
not allow changing an alias of private keys after they have been
generated. Since the key pair generator sets a blank alias when using
PKCS#11, HSM key pairs are left with no alias.
You can set an alias by providing it using pkcs11 attributes through
the provider, but that alias is provider global (for all generated key
pairs) which is not very usable.
Regards,
Tomas
On 03/26/2010 12:17 AM, Valerie Peng wrote:
Probably not. Unless explicitly specified through KeyStore APIs, aliases
are constructed using the attributes values associated with the
keys/certs. Thus, this is probably due to some problem with the native
library which generated the keys/certs.
Valerie
On 03/18/10 19:03, Weijun Wang wrote:
Hi Valerie
As described inhttp://forums.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=5432248,
customer's pkcs11 keystore has aliases ended with '\0'.
Is this something we should fix on the Java side?
Thanks
Max
