X.509 Internet Public Key Infrastructure Online Certificate Status Protocol - OCSP
RFC 2560
Document | Type |
RFC - Proposed Standard
(June 1999; Errata)
Obsoleted by RFC 6960
Updated by RFC 6277
Was draft-ietf-pkix-ocsp (pkix WG)
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Authors | Slava Galperin , Carlisle Adams , Michael Myers , Rich Ankney , Ambarish Malpani | ||
Last updated | 2020-01-21 | ||
Stream | IETF | ||
Formats | plain text html pdf htmlized with errata bibtex | ||
Stream | WG state | (None) | |
Document shepherd | No shepherd assigned | ||
IESG | IESG state | RFC 2560 (Proposed Standard) | |
Consensus Boilerplate | Unknown | ||
Telechat date | |||
Responsible AD | (None) | ||
Send notices to | (None) |
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 [RFC2119]. Myers, et al. Standards Track [Page 1] RFC 2560 PKIX OCSP June 1999 2. Protocol Overview In lieu of or as a supplement to checking against a periodic CRL, it may be necessary to obtain timely information regarding the revocation status of a certificate (cf. [RFC2459], Section 3.3). Examples include high-value funds transfer or large stock trades. The Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) enables applications to determine the (revocation) state of an identified certificate. OCSP may be used to satisfy some of the operational requirements of providing more timely revocation information than is possible with CRLs and may also be used to obtain additional status information. An OCSP client issues a status request to an OCSP responder and suspends acceptance of the certificate in question until the responder provides a response. This protocol specifies the data that needs to be exchanged between an application checking the status of a certificate and the server providing that status. 2.1 Request An OCSP request contains the following data: -- protocol version -- service request -- target certificate identifier -- optional extensions which MAY be processed by the OCSP Responder Upon receipt of a request, an OCSP Responder determines if: 1. the message is well formed 2. the responder is configured to provide the requested service and 3. the request contains the information needed by the responder If any one of the prior conditions are not met, the OCSP responder produces an error message; otherwise, it returns a definitive response. 2.2 Response OCSP responses can be of various types. An OCSP response consists of a response type and the bytes of the actual response. There is one basic type of OCSP response that MUST be supported by all OCSP servers and clients. The rest of this section pertains only to this basic response type. Myers, et al. Standards Track [Page 2] RFC 2560 PKIX OCSP June 1999 All definitive response messages SHALL be digitally signed. The key used to sign the response MUST belong to one of the following: -- the CA who issued the certificate in question -- a Trusted Responder whose public key is trusted by the requester -- a CA Designated Responder (Authorized Responder) who holds a specially marked certificate issued directly by the CA, indicating that the responder may issue OCSP responses for that CA A definitive response message is composed of: -- version of the response syntax -- name of the responderShow full document text