Subject: Question about Version-1 X509 Certificates

From: "Yasir Khan" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2003 15:56:02 +0500

Hi All,

How can we check that a version 1 X509 certificate is a CA certificate or an End-User certificate. In version 1 certificates, we dont have BasicConstraints and KeyUsage Extension. Any help on this issue would be appreciated.

Best Regards,
Yasir Khan

---

From: "Hoyt L. Kesterson II" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2003 13:57:13 -0700

version 1 certificates were specified in a more innocent world.
although we did categorized revocations into CA and user, there was no
way specified in the standard to state in a certificate the
restrictions on the use of that certificate. follow on work such as
PEM (privacy enhanced mail) demonstrated the need to flexibly specify
constraints.

that was the reason we developed the extension mechanism. as you
have noticed, that mechanism requires that the certificate be version
3. basic constraints was one of the first extensions defined.

one could use other mechanisms such as out-of-band agreements and
signal restrictions by the name but that is out of the scope of
x.509

hoyt

At 15:56 +0500 4/22/03, Yasir Khan wrote:

Hi All,

How can we check that a version 1 X509 certificate is
a CA certificate or an End-User certificate. In version 1
certificates, we dont have BasicConstraints and KeyUsage Extension.
Any help on this issue would be appreciated.

Best Regards,

Yasir Khan

---

From: Richard Levitte - VMS Whacker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2003 23:31:46 +0200 (CEST)

In message <001201c308bd$c6592d00$1100a8c0@ascertia3> on Tue, 22 Apr 2003 15:56:02 +0500, "Yasir Khan" <[email-masked]> said:

Yasir.Khan> How can we check that a version 1 X509 certificate is a CA
Yasir.Khan> certificate or an End-User certificate. In version 1
Yasir.Khan> certificates, we dont have BasicConstraints and KeyUsage
Yasir.Khan> Extension. Any help on this issue would be appreciated.

There is no way.  It isn't recommended to produce v1 certificates, for
that reason among others.

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