Java in a Nutshell, 5th Edition

Chapter 14. java.security and Subpackages

This chapter documents the java.security package and its subpackages. Those packages are:

java.security

This large packages contains much of Java’s security infrastructure, including a group of classes that provide access control through policies and permissions, and another group that provides authentication-related services such as digital signatures.

java.security.cert

This package defines classes and interfaces for working with public key certificates, certificate revocation lists (CRLs) and, in Java 1.4 and later, certificate chains (or certificate paths). It defines classes that should work with any type of certificate, and type-specific subclasses for X.509 certificates and CRLs.

java.security.interfaces

This package defines interfaces for algorithm-specific types of cryptographic keys. Providers that support those algorithms must implement these interfaces.

java.security.spec

This package defines classes that define a transparent, portable representation of algorithm-specific objects such as cryptographic keys. Instances of these classes can be used with any security provider.

The java.security.acl package is part of the Java platform, but has been superseded by access-control classes in java.security. It is not documented here.