Java Security, 2nd Edition

Key Management Terms

There are a number of terms that are important in our discussion of Java’s key management facilities:

keystore

The keystore is the file that actually holds the set of keys and certificates. By convention, this file is called .keystore and is held in the user’s home directory ($HOME on Unix systems, C:\WINDOWS on Microsoft Windows systems, and so on). However, there is great flexibility about where this file is located: the key management tools allow you to specify the location of the file, and the key management API allows you to use any arbitrary input stream. In fact, at the end of this chapter we’ll discuss how the set of keys may be held in a persistent store like a centralized database.

alias

Every key in the keystore belongs to an entity. An alias is a shortened, keystore-specific name for an entity that has a key or certificate in the keystore. I choose to store my public and private key in my local keystore under the alias “sdo”; if you have a copy of my public key certificate, you may use that alias, or you may use another alias (like “ScottOaks”). The alias used for a particular entity is completely up to the discretion of the individual who first enters that entity into the keystore.

DN (distinguished name)

The distinguished name for an entity in the keystore is a subset of its full X.500 name. This is a long string; for example, my DN is:

CN=Scott Oaks, OU=JSD, O=Sun Microsystems, L=New York, S=NY, C=US

DNs are used by certificate authorities to ...