Java XML Digital Signature API

Java XML Digital Signature API

The Java XML Digital Signature API is a standard Java API for generating and validating XML Signatures. This API was defined under the Java Community Process as JSR 105 (see http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=105). This JSR is final and this release of Java WSDP contains an FCS access implementation of the Final version of the APIs.

XML Signatures can be applied to data of any type, XML or binary (see http://www.w3.org/TR/xmldsig-core/). The resulting signature is represented in XML. An XML Signature can be used to secure your data and provide data integrity, message authentication, and signer authentication.

After providing a brief overview of XML Signatures and the XML Digital Signature API, this chapter presents two examples that demonstrate how to use the API to validate and generate an XML Signature. This chapter assumes that you have a basic knowledge of cryptography and digital signatures.

The API is designed to support all of the required or recommended features of the W3C Recommendation for XML-Signature Syntax and Processing. The API is extensible and pluggable and is based on the Java Cryptography Service Provider Architecture. The API is designed for two types of developers:

Java programmers who want to use the XML Digital Signature API to generate and validate XML signatures

Java programmers who want to create a concrete implementation of the XML Digital Signature API and register it as a cryptographic service of a JCA provider (see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/guide/security/CryptoSpec.html#Provider)