NE_SSL_CERT_IDENTITY

Section: neon API reference (3)
Updated: 20 June 2020
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NAME

ne_ssl_cert_identity, ne_ssl_cert_signedby, ne_ssl_cert_issuer, ne_ssl_cert_subject - functions to access certificate properties

SYNOPSIS

#include <ne_ssl.h>

const char *ne_ssl_cert_identity(const ne_ssl_certificate *cert);
const ne_ssl_certificate *ne_ssl_cert_signedby(const ne_ssl_certificate *cert);
const ne_ssl_dname *ne_ssl_cert_subject(const ne_ssl_certificate *cert);
const ne_ssl_dname *ne_ssl_cert_issuer(const ne_ssl_certificate *cert);

DESCRIPTION

The function ne_ssl_cert_identity retrieves the "identity" of a certificate; for an SSL server certificate, this will be the hostname for which the certificate was issued. In PKI parlance, the identity is the common name attribute of the distinguished name of the certificate subject.

The functions ne_ssl_cert_subject and ne_ssl_cert_issuer can be used to access the objects representing the distinguished name of the subject and of the issuer of a certificate, respectively.

If a certificate object is part of a certificate chain, then ne_ssl_cert_signedby can be used to find the certificate which signed a particular certificate. For a self-signed certificate or a certificate for which the full chain is not available, this function will return NULL.

RETURN VALUE

ne_ssl_cert_issuer and ne_ssl_cert_subject are guaranteed to never return NULL. ne_ssl_cert_identity may return NULL if the certificate has no specific "identity". ne_ssl_cert_signedby may return NULL as covered above.

EXAMPLES

The following function could be used to display information about a given certificate:

void dump_cert(const ne_ssl_certificate *cert) {
  const char *id = ne_ssl_cert_identity(cert);
  char *dn;

  if (id) 
    printf("Certificate was issued for '%s'.\n", id);

  dn = ne_ssl_readable_dname(ne_ssl_cert_subject(cert));
  printf("Subject: %s\n", dn);
  free(dn);

  dn = ne_ssl_readable_dname(ne_ssl_cert_issuer(cert));
  printf("Issuer: %s\n", dn);
  free(dn);
}

AUTHOR

Joe Orton <neon@lists.manyfish.co.uk>

: Author.