openssl/doc/man7/openssl-glossary.pod

=pod

=head1 NAME

openssl-glossary - An OpenSSL Glossary

=head1 DESCRIPTION

=for comment Please keep the items in case-insensitive alphabetical order

=over 4

=item ASN.1, ASN1

ASN.1 ("Abstract Syntax Notation One") is a notation for describing abstract
types and values.  It is defined in the ITU-T documents X.680 to X.683:

L<https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-X.680>,
L<https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-X.681>,
L<https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-X.682>,
L<https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-X.683>

=item DER ("Distinguished Encoding Rules")

DER is a binary encoding of data, structured according to an ASN.1
specification.  This is a common encoding used for cryptographic objects
such as private and public keys, certificates, CRLs, ...

It is defined in ITU-T document X.690:

L<https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-X.690>

=item MSBLOB

MSBLOB is a Microsoft specific binary format for RSA and DSA keys, both
private and public.  This form is never passphrase protected.

=item PEM ("Privacy Enhanced Message")

PEM is a format used for encoding of binary content into a mail and ASCII
friendly form.  The content is a series of base64-encoded lines, surrounded
by begin/end markers each on their own line.  For example:

 -----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----
 MIICdg....
 ... bhTQ==
 -----END PRIVATE KEY-----

Optional header line(s) may appear after the begin line, and their existence
depends on the type of object being written or read.

For all OpenSSL uses, the binary content is expected to be a DER encoded
structure.

This is defined in IETF RFC 1421:

L<https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1421>

=item PKCS#8 (also known as "pkcs8" in some parts of OpenSSL)

PKCS#8 is a specification of an ASN.1 structure that OpenSSL uses for
storing or transmitting any private key in a key type agnostic manner, and
has both an unencrypted and an encrypted form.

This is specified in RFC 5208:

L<https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5208>

=item PVK

PVK is a Microsoft specific binary format for RSA and DSA private keys.
This form may be passphrase protected.

=item SubjectPublicKeyInfo

SubjectPublicKeyInfo is an ASN.1 structure that OpenSSL uses for storing and
transmitting any public key in a key type agnostic manner.

This is specified as part of the specification for certificates, RFC 5280:

L<https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5280>

=back

=head1 HISTORY

This glossary was added in OpenSSL 3.0.

=head1 COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2020 The OpenSSL Project Authors. All Rights Reserved.

Licensed under the Apache License 2.0 (the "License").  You may not use
this file except in compliance with the License.  You can obtain a copy
in the file LICENSE in the source distribution or at
L<https://www.openssl.org/source/license.html>.

=cut