/*
* Copyright 1996-2006 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
* DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER.
*
* This code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
* under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only, as
* published by the Free Software Foundation. Sun designates this
* particular file as subject to the "Classpath" exception as provided
* by Sun in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code.
*
* This code is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
* ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
* FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License
* version 2 for more details (a copy is included in the LICENSE file that
* accompanied this code).
*
* You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License version
* 2 along with this work; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,
* Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.
*
* Please contact Sun Microsystems, Inc., 4150 Network Circle, Santa Clara,
* CA 95054 USA or visit www.sun.com if you need additional information or
* have any questions.
*/
package java.security;
/**
* The Key interface is the top-level interface for all keys. It
* defines the functionality shared by all key objects. All keys
* have three characteristics:
*
* <UL>
*
* <LI>An Algorithm
*
* <P>This is the key algorithm for that key. The key algorithm is usually
* an encryption or asymmetric operation algorithm (such as DSA or
* RSA), which will work with those algorithms and with related
* algorithms (such as MD5 with RSA, SHA-1 with RSA, Raw DSA, etc.)
* The name of the algorithm of a key is obtained using the
* {@link #getAlgorithm() getAlgorithm} method.<P>
*
* <LI>An Encoded Form
*
* <P>This is an external encoded form for the key used when a standard
* representation of the key is needed outside the Java Virtual Machine,
* as when transmitting the key to some other party. The key
* is encoded according to a standard format (such as
* X.509 <code>SubjectPublicKeyInfo</code> or PKCS#8), and
* is returned using the {@link #getEncoded() getEncoded} method.
* Note: The syntax of the ASN.1 type <code>SubjectPublicKeyInfo</code>
* is defined as follows:
*
* <pre>
* SubjectPublicKeyInfo ::= SEQUENCE {
* algorithm AlgorithmIdentifier,
* subjectPublicKey BIT STRING }
*
* AlgorithmIdentifier ::= SEQUENCE {
* algorithm OBJECT IDENTIFIER,
* parameters ANY DEFINED BY algorithm OPTIONAL }
* </pre>
*
* For more information, see
* <a href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3280.txt">RFC 3280:
* Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate and CRL Profile</a>.
* <P>
*
* <LI>A Format
*
* <P>This is the name of the format of the encoded key. It is returned
* by the {@link #getFormat() getFormat} method.<P>
*
* </UL>
*
* Keys are generally obtained through key generators, certificates,
* or various Identity classes used to manage keys.
* Keys may also be obtained from key specifications (transparent
* representations of the underlying key material) through the use of a key
* factory (see {@link KeyFactory}).
*
* <p> A Key should use KeyRep as its serialized representation.
* Note that a serialized Key may contain sensitive information
* which should not be exposed in untrusted environments. See the
* <a href="../../../platform/serialization/spec/security.html">
* Security Appendix</a>
* of the Serialization Specification for more information.
*
* @see PublicKey
* @see PrivateKey
* @see KeyPair
* @see KeyPairGenerator
* @see KeyFactory
* @see KeyRep
* @see java.security.spec.KeySpec
* @see Identity
* @see Signer
*
* @version 1.64 07/05/05
* @author Benjamin Renaud
*/
public interface Key extends java.io.Serializable {
// Declare serialVersionUID to be compatible with JDK1.1
/**
* The class fingerprint that is set to indicate
* serialization compatibility with a previous
* version of the class.
*/
static final long serialVersionUID = 6603384152749567654L;
/**
* Returns the standard algorithm name for this key. For
* example, "DSA" would indicate that this key is a DSA key.
* See Appendix A in the <a href=
* "../../../technotes/guides/security/crypto/CryptoSpec.html#AppA">
* Java Cryptography Architecture API Specification & Reference </a>
* for information about standard algorithm names.
*
* @return the name of the algorithm associated with this key.
*/
public String getAlgorithm();
/**
* Returns the name of the primary encoding format of this key,
* or null if this key does not support encoding.
* The primary encoding format is
* named in terms of the appropriate ASN.1 data format, if an
* ASN.1 specification for this key exists.
* For example, the name of the ASN.1 data format for public
* keys is <I>SubjectPublicKeyInfo</I>, as
* defined by the X.509 standard; in this case, the returned format is
* <code>"X.509"</code>. Similarly,
* the name of the ASN.1 data format for private keys is
* <I>PrivateKeyInfo</I>,
* as defined by the PKCS #8 standard; in this case, the returned format is
* <code>"PKCS#8"</code>.
*
* @return the primary encoding format of the key.
*/
public String getFormat();
/**
* Returns the key in its primary encoding format, or null
* if this key does not support encoding.
*
* @return the encoded key, or null if the key does not support
* encoding.
*/
public byte[] getEncoded();
}
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