Interface for an X.509 extension.
The extensions defined for X.509 v3 Certificates and v2 CRLs (Certificate Revocation Lists) provide methods for associating additional attributes with users or public keys, for managing the certification hierarchy, and for managing CRL distribution. The X.509 extensions format also allows communities to define private extensions to carry information unique to those communities.
Each extension in a certificate/CRL may be designated as critical or non-critical. A certificate/CRL-using system (an application validating a certificate/CRL) must reject the certificate/CRL if it encounters a critical extension it does not recognize. A non-critical extension may be ignored if it is not recognized.
The ASN.1 definition for this is:
Extensions ::= SEQUENCE SIZE (1..MAX) OF Extension
Extension ::= SEQUENCE {
extnId OBJECT IDENTIFIER,
critical BOOLEAN DEFAULT FALSE,
extnValue OCTET STRING
-- contains a DER encoding of a value
-- of the type registered for use with
-- the extnId object identifier value
}
Since not all extensions are known, the
getExtensionValue method returns the DER-encoded OCTET STRING of the extension value (i.e., the
extnValue). This can then be handled by a
Class that understands the extension.