Creating an X509 Certificate in Java without BouncyCastle?

Question

Is it possible to sanely create an X509 Certificate in Java code without using the Bouncy Castle X509V*CertificateGenerator classes?

Answer 1

Yes, but not with publicly documented classes. I've documented the process in this article.

import sun.security.x509.*;
import java.security.cert.*;
import java.security.*;
import java.math.BigInteger;
import java.util.Date;
import java.io.IOException

/** 
 * Create a self-signed X.509 Certificate
 * @param dn the X.509 Distinguished Name, eg "CN=Test, L=London, C=GB"
 * @param pair the KeyPair
 * @param days how many days from now the Certificate is valid for
 * @param algorithm the signing algorithm, eg "SHA1withRSA"
 */ 
X509Certificate generateCertificate(String dn, KeyPair pair, int days, String algorithm)
  throws GeneralSecurityException, IOException
{
  PrivateKey privkey = pair.getPrivate();
  X509CertInfo info = new X509CertInfo();
  Date from = new Date();
  Date to = new Date(from.getTime() + days * 86400000l);
  CertificateValidity interval = new CertificateValidity(from, to);
  BigInteger sn = new BigInteger(64, new SecureRandom());
  X500Name owner = new X500Name(dn);
 
  info.set(X509CertInfo.VALIDITY, interval);
  info.set(X509CertInfo.SERIAL_NUMBER, new CertificateSerialNumber(sn));
  info.set(X509CertInfo.SUBJECT, new CertificateSubjectName(owner));
  info.set(X509CertInfo.ISSUER, new CertificateIssuerName(owner));
  info.set(X509CertInfo.KEY, new CertificateX509Key(pair.getPublic()));
  info.set(X509CertInfo.VERSION, new CertificateVersion(CertificateVersion.V3));
  AlgorithmId algo = new AlgorithmId(AlgorithmId.md5WithRSAEncryption_oid);
  info.set(X509CertInfo.ALGORITHM_ID, new CertificateAlgorithmId(algo));
 
  // Sign the cert to identify the algorithm that's used.
  X509CertImpl cert = new X509CertImpl(info);
  cert.sign(privkey, algorithm);
 
  // Update the algorith, and resign.
  algo = (AlgorithmId)cert.get(X509CertImpl.SIG_ALG);
  info.set(CertificateAlgorithmId.NAME + "." + CertificateAlgorithmId.ALGORITHM, algo);
  cert = new X509CertImpl(info);
  cert.sign(privkey, algorithm);
  return cert;
}