5 CMS_verify - verify a CMS SignedData structure
9 #include <openssl/cms.h>
11 int CMS_verify(CMS_ContentInfo *cms, STACK_OF(X509) *certs, X509_STORE *store, BIO *indata, BIO *out, unsigned int flags);
13 STACK_OF(X509) *CMS_get0_signers(CMS_ContentInfo *cms);
17 CMS_verify() verifies a CMS SignedData structure. B<cms> is the CMS_ContentInfo
18 structure to verify. B<certs> is a set of certificates in which to search for
19 the signing certificate(s). B<store> is a trusted certificate store used for
20 chain verification. B<indata> is the detached content if the content is not
21 present in B<cms>. The content is written to B<out> if it is not NULL.
23 B<flags> is an optional set of flags, which can be used to modify the verify
26 CMS_get0_signers() retrieves the signing certificate(s) from B<cms>, it must
27 be called after a successful CMS_verify() operation.
31 Normally the verify process proceeds as follows.
33 Initially some sanity checks are performed on B<cms>. The type of B<cms> must
34 be SignedData. There must be at least one signature on the data and if
35 the content is detached B<indata> cannot be B<NULL>.
37 An attempt is made to locate all the signing certificate(s), first looking in
38 the B<certs> parameter (if it is not NULL) and then looking in any
39 certificates contained in the B<cms> structure itself. If any signing
40 certificate cannot be located the operation fails.
42 Each signing certificate is chain verified using the B<smimesign> purpose and
43 the supplied trusted certificate store. Any internal certificates in the message
44 are used as untrusted CAs. If CRL checking is enabled in B<store> any internal
45 CRLs are used in addition to attempting to look them up in B<store>. If any
46 chain verify fails an error code is returned.
48 Finally the signed content is read (and written to B<out> is it is not NULL)
49 and the signature's checked.
51 If all signature's verify correctly then the function is successful.
53 Any of the following flags (ored together) can be passed in the B<flags>
54 parameter to change the default verify behaviour.
56 If B<CMS_NOINTERN> is set the certificates in the message itself are not
57 searched when locating the signing certificate(s). This means that all the
58 signing certificates must be in the B<certs> parameter.
60 If B<CMS_NOCRL> is set and CRL checking is enabled in B<store> then any
61 CRLs in the message itself are ignored.
63 If the B<CMS_TEXT> flag is set MIME headers for type B<text/plain> are deleted
64 from the content. If the content is not of type B<text/plain> then an error is
67 If B<CMS_NO_SIGNER_CERT_VERIFY> is set the signing certificates are not
70 If B<CMS_NO_ATTR_VERIFY> is set the signed attributes signature is not
73 If B<CMS_NO_CONTENT_VERIFY> is set then the content digest is not checked.
77 One application of B<CMS_NOINTERN> is to only accept messages signed by
78 a small number of certificates. The acceptable certificates would be passed
79 in the B<certs> parameter. In this case if the signer is not one of the
80 certificates supplied in B<certs> then the verify will fail because the
81 signer cannot be found.
83 In some cases the standard techniques for looking up and validating
84 certificates are not appropriate: for example an application may wish to
85 lookup certificates in a database or perform customised verification. This
86 can be achieved by setting and verifying the signers certificates manually
87 using the signed data utility functions.
89 Care should be taken when modifying the default verify behaviour, for example
90 setting B<CMS_NO_CONTENT_VERIFY> will totally disable all content verification
91 and any modified content will be considered valid. This combination is however
92 useful if one merely wishes to write the content to B<out> and its validity
93 is not considered important.
95 Chain verification should arguably be performed using the signing time rather
96 than the current time. However since the signing time is supplied by the
97 signer it cannot be trusted without additional evidence (such as a trusted
102 CMS_verify() returns 1 for a successful verification and zero if an error
105 CMS_get0_signers() returns all signers or NULL if an error occurred.
107 The error can be obtained from L<ERR_get_error(3)|ERR_get_error(3)>
111 The trusted certificate store is not searched for the signing certificate,
112 this is primarily due to the inadequacies of the current B<X509_STORE>
115 The lack of single pass processing means that the signed content must all
116 be held in memory if it is not detached.
120 L<ERR_get_error(3)|ERR_get_error(3)>, L<CMS_sign(3)|CMS_sign(3)>
124 CMS_verify() was added to OpenSSL 0.9.8