| e | <-------------------->| End entity |
       | r |       Operational     +------------+
       | t |       transactions          ^
       |   |      and management         |  Management
       | / |       transactions          |  transactions
       |   |                             |                PKI users
       | C |                             v
       | R |       -------------------+--+-----------+----------------
       | L |                          ^              ^
       |   |                          |              |  PKI management
       |   |                          v              |      entities
       | R |                       +------+          |
       | e | <---------------------| RA   | <---+    |
       | p |  Publish certificate  +------+     |    |
       | o |                                    |    |
       | s |                                    |    |
       | I |                                    v    v
       | t |                                +------------+
       | o | <------------------------------|     CA     |
       | r |   Publish certificate          +------------+
       | y |   Publish CRL                         ^
       |   |                                       |
       +---+                        Management     |
                                    transactions   |
                                                   v
                                               +------+
                                               |  CA  |
                                               +------+

                          Figure 1 - PKI Entities

   The components in this model are:

   end entity:  user of PKI certificates and/or end user system that
                is the subject of a certificate;
   CA:          certification authority;
   RA:          registration authority, i.e., an optional system to
                which a CA delegates certain management functions;
   repository:  a system or collection of distributed systems that
                store certificates and CRLs and serves as a means of
                distributing these certificates and CRLs to end
                entities.








 
RFC 2459        Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure    January 1999


3.1  X.509 Version 3 Certificate

   Users of a public key shall be confident that the associated private
   key is owned by the correct remote subject (person or system) with
   which an encryption or digital signature mechanism will be used.
   This confidence is obtained through the use of public key
   certificates, which are data structures that bind public key values
   to subjects.  The binding is asserted by having a trusted CA
   digitally sign each certificate. The CA may base this assertion upon
   technical means (a.k.a., proof of posession through a challenge-
   response protocol), presentation of the private key, or on an
   assertion by the subject.  A certificate has a limited valid lifetime
   which is indicated in its signed contents.  Because a certificate's
   signature and timeliness can be independently checked by a
   certificate-using client, certificates can be distributed via
   untrusted communications and server systems, and can be cached in
   unsecured storage in certificate-using systems.

   ITU-T X.509 (formerly CCITT X.509) or ISO/IEC/ITU 9594-8, which was
   first published in 1988 as part of the X.500 Directory
   recommendations, defines a standard certificate format [X.509]. The
   certificate format in the 1988 standard is called the version 1 (v1)
   format.  When X.500 was revised in 1993, two more fields were added,
   resulting in the version 2 (v2) format. These two fields may be used
   to support directory access control.

   The Internet Privacy Enhanced Mail (PEM) RFCs, published in 1993,
   include specifications for a public key infrastructure based on X.509
   v1 certificates [RFC 1422].  The experience gained in attempts to
   deploy RFC 1422 made it clear that the v1 and v2 certificate formats
   are deficient in several respects.  Most importantly, more fields
   were needed to carry information which PEM design and implementation
   experience has proven necessary.  In response to these new
   requirements, ISO/IEC/ITU and ANSI X9 developed the X.509 version 3
   (v3) certificate format.  The v3 format extends the v2 format by
   adding provision for additional extension fields.  Particular
   extension field types may be specified in standards or may be defined
   and registered by any organization or community. In June 1996,
   standardization of the basic v3 format was completed [X.509].

   ISO/IEC/ITU and ANSI X9 have also developed standard extensions for
   use in the v3 extensions field [X.509][X9.55].  These extensions can
   convey such data as additional subject identification information,
   key attribute information, policy information, and certification path
   constraints.