RFC 2560 (rfc2560) - Page 1 of 23


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Alternative Format: Original Text Document



Network Working Group                                           M. Myers
Request for Comments: 2560                                      VeriSign
Category: Standards Track                                      R. Ankney
                                                                  CertCo
                                                              A. Malpani
                                                                ValiCert
                                                             S. Galperin
                                                                  My CFO
                                                                C. Adams
                                                    Entrust Technologies
                                                               June 1999


                X.509 Internet Public Key Infrastructure
               Online Certificate Status Protocol - OCSP

Status of this Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999).  All Rights Reserved.

1.  Abstract

   This document specifies a protocol useful in determining the current
   status of a digital certificate without requiring CRLs. Additional
   mechanisms addressing PKIX operational requirements are specified in
   separate documents.

   An overview of the protocol is provided in section 2. Functional
   requirements are specified in section 4. Details of the protocol are
   in section 5. We cover security issues with the protocol in section
   6. Appendix A defines OCSP over HTTP, appendix B accumulates ASN.1
   syntactic elements and appendix C specifies the mime types for the
   messages.

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document (in uppercase, as shown) are to be interpreted as described
   in [RFC 2119].





Myers, et al.               Standards Track