One document matched: draft-ietf-jose-json-web-signature-35.xml
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<rfc category="std" ipr="trust200902" docName="draft-ietf-jose-json-web-signature-35">
<front>
<title>JSON Web Signature (JWS)</title>
<author fullname="Michael B. Jones" initials="M.B." surname="Jones">
<organization>Microsoft</organization>
<address>
<email>mbj@microsoft.com</email>
<uri>http://self-issued.info/</uri>
</address>
</author>
<author fullname="John Bradley" initials="J." surname="Bradley">
<organization abbrev="Ping Identity">Ping Identity</organization>
<address>
<email>ve7jtb@ve7jtb.com</email>
<uri>http://www.thread-safe.com/</uri>
</address>
</author>
<author fullname="Nat Sakimura" initials="N." surname="Sakimura">
<organization abbrev="NRI">Nomura Research Institute</organization>
<address>
<email>n-sakimura@nri.co.jp</email>
<uri>http://nat.sakimura.org/</uri>
</address>
</author>
<date day="17" month="October" year="2014"/>
<area>Security</area>
<workgroup>JOSE Working Group</workgroup>
<keyword>RFC</keyword>
<keyword>Request for Comments</keyword>
<keyword>I-D</keyword>
<keyword>Internet-Draft</keyword>
<keyword>JavaScript Object Notation</keyword>
<keyword>JSON</keyword>
<keyword>JSON Object Signing and Encryption</keyword>
<keyword>JOSE</keyword>
<keyword>JSON Web Signature</keyword>
<keyword>JWS</keyword>
<keyword>JSON Web Encryption</keyword>
<keyword>JWE</keyword>
<keyword>JSON Web Key</keyword>
<keyword>JWK</keyword>
<keyword>JSON Web Algorithms</keyword>
<keyword>JWA</keyword>
<abstract>
<t>
JSON Web Signature (JWS) represents
content secured with digital signatures or
Message Authentication Codes (MACs)
using JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) based data structures.
Cryptographic algorithms and identifiers for use with this
specification are described in the separate
JSON Web Algorithms (JWA) specification
and an IANA registry defined by that specification.
Related encryption capabilities are described in the separate
JSON Web Encryption (JWE) specification.
</t>
</abstract>
</front>
<middle>
<section title="Introduction" anchor="Introduction">
<t>
JSON Web Signature (JWS) represents
content secured with digital signatures or
Message Authentication Codes (MACs)
using JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) <xref target="RFC7159"/>
based data structures.
The JWS cryptographic mechanisms provide integrity protection for
an arbitrary sequence of octets.
See <xref target="SignaturesAndMacs"/> for a discussion on
the differences between Digital Signatures and MACs.
</t>
<t>
Two closely related serializations for JWS objects are defined.
The JWS Compact Serialization is a compact, URL-safe representation
intended for space constrained environments such as HTTP
Authorization headers and URI query parameters.
The JWS JSON Serialization represents JWS objects as JSON objects and
enables multiple signatures and/or MACs to be applied to the same content.
Both share the same cryptographic underpinnings.
</t>
<t>
Cryptographic algorithms and identifiers for use with this
specification are described in the separate
JSON Web Algorithms (JWA) <xref target="JWA" /> specification
and an IANA registry defined by that specification.
Related encryption capabilities are described in the separate
JSON Web Encryption (JWE) <xref target="JWE" /> specification.
</t>
<t>
Names defined by this specification are short because a core goal is
for the resulting representations to be compact.
</t>
<section title="Notational Conventions" anchor="NotationalConventions">
<t>
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL",
"SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY",
and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as
described in
Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels <xref target='RFC2119' />.
If these words are used without being spelled in uppercase then
they are to be interpreted with their normal natural language meanings.
</t>
<t>
BASE64URL(OCTETS) denotes the base64url encoding of OCTETS,
per <xref target="Terminology"/>.
</t>
<t>
UTF8(STRING) denotes the octets of the
UTF-8 <xref target="RFC3629"/> representation of STRING.
</t>
<t>
ASCII(STRING) denotes the octets of the
ASCII <xref target="RFC20"/> representation of STRING.
</t>
<t>
The concatenation of two values A and B
is denoted as A || B.
</t>
</section>
</section>
<section title="Terminology" anchor="Terminology">
<t>
These terms are defined by this specification:
</t>
<t>
<list style="hanging">
<t hangText="JSON Web Signature (JWS)">
<vspace/>
A data structure representing a digitally signed or MACed message.
</t>
<t hangText="JOSE Header">
<vspace/>
JSON object containing the parameters
describing the cryptographic operations and parameters employed.
The JOSE Header is comprised of a set of Header Parameters.
</t>
<t hangText="JWS Payload">
<vspace/>
The sequence of octets to be secured -- a.k.a., the message.
The payload can contain an arbitrary sequence of octets.
</t>
<t hangText="JWS Signature">
<vspace/>
Digital signature or MAC over
the JWS Protected Header and the JWS Payload.
</t>
<t hangText="Header Parameter">
<vspace/>
A name/value pair that is member of the JOSE Header.
</t>
<t hangText="JWS Protected Header">
<vspace/>
JSON object that contains the Header Parameters that are
integrity protected by
the JWS Signature digital signature or MAC operation.
For the JWS Compact Serialization, this comprises the entire JOSE Header.
For the JWS JSON Serialization, this is one component of the JOSE Header.
</t>
<t hangText="JWS Unprotected Header">
<vspace/>
JSON object that contains the Header Parameters that are not
integrity protected.
This can only be present when using the JWS JSON Serialization.
</t>
<t hangText="Base64url Encoding">
<vspace/>
Base64 encoding using the URL- and filename-safe
character set defined in Section 5 of <xref target="RFC4648">RFC 4648</xref>,
with all trailing '=' characters omitted (as permitted by Section 3.2)
and without the inclusion of any line breaks, white space, or other additional characters.
Note that the base64url encoding of the empty octet sequence
is the empty string.
(See <xref target="base64urlnotes" /> for notes on
implementing base64url encoding without padding.)
</t>
<t hangText="JWS Signing Input">
<vspace/>
The input to the digital signature or MAC computation.
Its value is
ASCII(BASE64URL(UTF8(JWS Protected Header)) || '.' || BASE64URL(JWS Payload)).
</t>
<t hangText="JWS Compact Serialization">
<vspace/>
A representation of the JWS as a compact, URL-safe string.
</t>
<t hangText="JWS JSON Serialization">
<vspace/>
A representation of the JWS as a JSON object.
Unlike the JWS Compact Serialization,
the JWS JSON Serialization
enables multiple digital signatures and/or MACs to
be applied to the same content.
This representation is neither optimized for compactness nor URL-safe.
</t>
<t hangText="Unsecured JWS">
<vspace/>
A JWS object that provides no integrity protection.
Unsecured JWSs use the <spanx style="verb">alg</spanx>
value <spanx style="verb">none</spanx>.
</t>
<t hangText="Collision-Resistant Name">
<vspace/>
A name in a namespace that enables names to be allocated in a manner
such that they are highly unlikely to collide with other names.
Examples of collision-resistant namespaces include:
Domain Names,
Object Identifiers (OIDs) as defined in the ITU-T X.660
and X.670 Recommendation series, and
Universally Unique IDentifiers (UUIDs)
<xref target="RFC4122"/>.
When using an administratively delegated namespace,
the definer of a name needs to take
reasonable precautions to ensure they are in control of
the portion of the namespace they use to define the name.
</t>
<t hangText="StringOrURI">
<vspace/>
A JSON string value, with the additional requirement that
while arbitrary string values MAY be used, any value
containing a ":" character MUST be a URI
<xref target="RFC3986"/>.
StringOrURI values are compared as case-sensitive strings
with no transformations or canonicalizations applied.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
These terms defined by the
JSON Web Encryption (JWE) <xref target="JWE"/>
specification are incorporated into this specification:
"JSON Web Encryption (JWE)",
"JWE Compact Serialization",
and "JWE JSON Serialization".
</t>
<t>
These terms defined by the
<xref target="RFC4949">Internet Security Glossary, Version 2</xref>
are incorporated into this specification:
"Digital Signature"
and "Message Authentication Code (MAC)".
</t>
</section>
<section title="JSON Web Signature (JWS) Overview" anchor="Overview">
<t>
JWS represents digitally signed or MACed content using JSON data
structures and base64url encoding.
These JSON data structures MAY contain white space and/or line breaks.
A JWS represents these logical values
(each of which is defined in <xref target="Terminology"/>):
</t>
<t>
<?rfc subcompact="yes"?>
<list style="symbols">
<t>JOSE Header</t>
<t>JWS Payload</t>
<t>JWS Signature</t>
</list>
<?rfc subcompact="no"?>
</t>
<t>
For a JWS object,
the JOSE Header members are the union of the members of these values
(each of which is defined in <xref target="Terminology"/>):
</t>
<t>
<?rfc subcompact="yes"?>
<list style="symbols">
<t>JWS Protected Header</t>
<t>JWS Unprotected Header</t>
</list>
<?rfc subcompact="no"?>
</t>
<t>
This document defines two serializations for JWS objects:
a compact, URL-safe serialization called the JWS Compact Serialization
and a JSON serialization called the JWS JSON Serialization.
In both serializations, the
JWS Protected Header,
JWS Payload, and
JWS Signature
are base64url encoded,
since JSON lacks a way to directly represent arbitrary octet sequences.
</t>
<section title="JWS Compact Serialization Overview" anchor="CompactSerializationOverview">
<t>
In the JWS Compact Serialization, no JWS Unprotected Header is used.
In this case, the JOSE Header and the JWS Protected Header are the same.
</t>
<t>
In the JWS Compact Serialization, a JWS object is represented as the
concatenation:
</t>
<t>
<?rfc subcompact="yes"?>
<list style="empty">
<t>BASE64URL(UTF8(JWS Protected Header)) || '.' ||</t>
<t>BASE64URL(JWS Payload) || '.' ||</t>
<t>BASE64URL(JWS Signature)</t>
</list>
<?rfc subcompact="no"?>
</t>
<t>
See <xref target="CompactSerialization"/> for more information
about the JWS Compact Serialization.
</t>
</section>
<section title="JWS JSON Serialization Overview" anchor="JSONSerializationOverview">
<t>
In the JWS JSON Serialization, one or both of the JWS Protected Header
and JWS Unprotected Header MUST be present.
In this case, the members of the JOSE Header are the union of
the members of the JWS Protected Header and the JWS Unprotected Header
values that are present.
</t>
<t>
In the JWS JSON Serialization, a JWS object is represented as the
combination of these four values:
<?rfc subcompact="yes"?>
<list style="empty">
<t>BASE64URL(UTF8(JWS Protected Header))</t>
<t>JWS Unprotected Header</t>
<t>BASE64URL(JWS Payload)</t>
<t>BASE64URL(JWS Signature)</t>
</list>
<?rfc subcompact="no"?>
</t>
<t>
The three base64url encoded result strings
and the JWS Unprotected Header value
are represented as members within a JSON object.
The inclusion of some of these values is OPTIONAL.
The JWS JSON Serialization can also represent
multiple signature and/or MAC values, rather than just one.
See <xref target="JSONSerialization"/> for more information
about the JWS JSON Serialization.
</t>
</section>
<section title="Example JWS" anchor="ExampleJWS">
<t>
This section provides an example of a JWS.
Its computation is described in more detail in <xref target="HS256Example"/>,
including specifying the exact octet sequences representing the JSON values used
and the key value used.
</t>
<t>
The following example JWS Protected Header declares that the
encoded object is a JSON Web Token (JWT) <xref target="JWT" />
and the JWS Protected Header and the JWS Payload are
secured using the HMAC SHA-256
[<xref target="RFC2104" format="counter"/>, <xref target="SHS" format="counter"/>]
algorithm:
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
{"typ":"JWT",
"alg":"HS256"}
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
Encoding this JWS Protected Header as
BASE64URL(UTF8(JWS Protected Header)) gives this value:
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLA0KICJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
The UTF-8 representation of following JSON object is used as the JWS Payload.
(Note that the payload can be any
content, and need not be a representation of a JSON object.)
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
{"iss":"joe",
"exp":1300819380,
"http://example.com/is_root":true}
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
Encoding this JWS Payload as
BASE64URL(JWS Payload) gives this value
(with line breaks for display purposes only):
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
eyJpc3MiOiJqb2UiLA0KICJleHAiOjEzMDA4MTkzODAsDQogImh0dHA6Ly9leGFt
cGxlLmNvbS9pc19yb290Ijp0cnVlfQ
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
Computing the HMAC of the JWS Signing Input
ASCII(BASE64URL(UTF8(JWS Protected Header)) || '.' || BASE64URL(JWS Payload))
with the HMAC SHA-256 algorithm
using the key specified in <xref target="HS256Example" />
and base64url encoding the result
yields this BASE64URL(JWS Signature) value:
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
dBjftJeZ4CVP-mB92K27uhbUJU1p1r_wW1gFWFOEjXk
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
Concatenating these values in the order
Header.Payload.Signature with period ('.') characters between the
parts yields this complete JWS representation
using the JWS Compact Serialization
(with line breaks for display purposes only):
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLA0KICJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9
.
eyJpc3MiOiJqb2UiLA0KICJleHAiOjEzMDA4MTkzODAsDQogImh0dHA6Ly9leGFt
cGxlLmNvbS9pc19yb290Ijp0cnVlfQ
.
dBjftJeZ4CVP-mB92K27uhbUJU1p1r_wW1gFWFOEjXk
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
See <xref target="JWSExamples"/> for additional examples,
including an example using the JWS JSON Serialization
in <xref target="JSONSerializationExample"/>.
</t>
</section>
</section>
<section title="JOSE Header" anchor="Header">
<t>
For a JWS object,
the members of the JSON object(s) representing the JOSE Header describe the
digital signature or MAC applied to the
JWS Protected Header and the JWS Payload and optionally
additional properties of the JWS.
The Header Parameter names within the JOSE Header MUST be unique;
JWS parsers MUST either reject JWSs with duplicate Header Parameter names
or use a JSON parser that returns only the lexically last duplicate member name,
as specified in Section 15.12 (The JSON Object) of
ECMAScript 5.1 <xref target="ECMAScript"/>.
</t>
<t>
Implementations are required to understand
the specific Header Parameters defined by this specification
that are designated as "MUST be understood"
and process them in the manner defined in this specification.
All other Header Parameters defined by this specification that
are not so designated MUST be ignored when not understood.
Unless listed as a critical Header Parameter, per <xref target="critDef"/>,
all Header Parameters not defined by this specification
MUST be ignored when not understood.
</t>
<t>
There are three classes of Header Parameter names:
Registered Header Parameter names, Public Header Parameter names,
and Private Header Parameter names.
</t>
<section title="Registered Header Parameter Names" anchor="RegisteredHeaderParameterName">
<t>
The following Header Parameter names for use in JWS objects are registered
in the IANA
JSON Web Signature and Encryption Header Parameters registry
defined in
<xref target="HdrReg"/>,
with meanings as defined below.
</t>
<t>
As indicated by the common registry, JWSs and JWEs share a
common Header Parameter space; when a parameter is used by
both specifications, its usage must be compatible
between the specifications.
</t>
<section title='"alg" (Algorithm) Header Parameter' anchor="algDef">
<t>
The <spanx style="verb">alg</spanx> (algorithm) Header Parameter
identifies the cryptographic algorithm used to
secure the JWS.
The JWS Signature value is not valid if the <spanx style="verb">alg</spanx>
value does not represent a supported algorithm, or if there is not a
key for use with that algorithm associated with the
party that digitally signed or MACed the content.
<spanx style="verb">alg</spanx> values should either be
registered in the IANA
JSON Web Signature and Encryption Algorithms registry
defined in
<xref target="JWA" /> or be
a value that contains a Collision-Resistant Name.
The <spanx style="verb">alg</spanx> value is a case-sensitive string
containing a StringOrURI value.
This Header Parameter MUST be present
and MUST be understood and processed by implementations.
</t>
<t>
A list of defined <spanx style="verb">alg</spanx> values
for this use can be found
in the IANA JSON Web Signature and Encryption Algorithms registry
defined in
<xref target="JWA" />;
the initial contents of this registry are the values defined in
Section 3.1 of the
JSON Web Algorithms (JWA) <xref target="JWA" /> specification.
</t>
</section>
<section title='"jku" (JWK Set URL) Header Parameter' anchor="jkuDef">
<t>
The <spanx style="verb">jku</spanx> (JWK Set URL)
Header Parameter is a URI <xref target="RFC3986"/> that refers to a
resource for a set of JSON-encoded public keys, one of which
corresponds to the key
used to digitally sign the JWS.
The keys MUST be encoded as a JSON Web Key Set (JWK Set) <xref target="JWK" />.
The protocol used to acquire the resource MUST provide
integrity protection; an HTTP GET request to retrieve the
JWK Set MUST use TLS
[<xref target="RFC2818" format="counter"/>, <xref target="RFC5246" format="counter"/>];
the identity of the server MUST be validated, as per
Section 6 of <xref target="RFC6125">RFC 6125</xref>.
Also, see <xref target="TLS_requirements"/> on TLS requirements.
Use of this Header Parameter is OPTIONAL.
</t>
</section>
<section title='"jwk" (JSON Web Key) Header Parameter' anchor="jwkDef">
<t>
The <spanx style="verb">jwk</spanx> (JSON Web Key)
Header Parameter is the public key
that corresponds to the key
used to digitally sign the JWS.
This key is represented as a JSON Web Key <xref target="JWK" />.
Use of this Header Parameter is OPTIONAL.
</t>
</section>
<section title='"kid" (Key ID) Header Parameter' anchor="kidDef">
<t>
The <spanx style="verb">kid</spanx> (key ID) Header Parameter
is a hint indicating which key
was used to secure the JWS.
This parameter allows originators to explicitly signal a change of
key to recipients.
The structure of the
<spanx style="verb">kid</spanx> value is unspecified.
Its value MUST be a case-sensitive string.
Use of this Header Parameter is OPTIONAL.
</t>
<t>
When used with a JWK, the <spanx style="verb">kid</spanx>
value is used to match a JWK <spanx style="verb">kid</spanx>
parameter value.
</t>
</section>
<section title='"x5u" (X.509 URL) Header Parameter' anchor="x5uDef">
<t>
The <spanx style="verb">x5u</spanx> (X.509 URL) Header Parameter
is a URI <xref target="RFC3986"/> that refers to a resource for
the X.509 public key certificate or certificate chain <xref target="RFC5280"/>
corresponding to the key
used to digitally sign the JWS.
The identified resource MUST provide a representation of
the certificate or certificate chain that conforms to
<xref target="RFC5280">RFC 5280</xref> in PEM encoded form,
with each certificate delimited as specified in
Section 6.1 of <xref target="RFC4945">RFC 4945</xref>.
The certificate containing the public key
corresponding to the key
used to digitally sign the JWS
MUST be the first certificate.
This MAY be followed by additional certificates, with each
subsequent certificate being the one used to certify the
previous one.
The protocol used to acquire the resource MUST provide
integrity protection; an HTTP GET request to retrieve the
certificate MUST use TLS
[<xref target="RFC2818" format="counter"/>, <xref target="RFC5246" format="counter"/>];
the identity of the server MUST be validated, as per
Section 6 of <xref target="RFC6125">RFC 6125</xref>.
Also, see <xref target="TLS_requirements"/> on TLS requirements.
Use of this Header Parameter is OPTIONAL.
</t>
</section>
<section title='"x5c" (X.509 Certificate Chain) Header Parameter' anchor="x5cDef">
<t>
The <spanx style="verb">x5c</spanx> (X.509 Certificate Chain)
Header Parameter contains the X.509 public key
certificate or certificate chain <xref target="RFC5280"/>
corresponding to the key
used to digitally sign the JWS.
The certificate or certificate chain is represented as
a JSON array of certificate value strings.
Each string in the array is a base64 encoded
(<xref target="RFC4648"/> Section 4 -- not base64url encoded)
DER <xref target="ITU.X690.1994"/> PKIX certificate value.
The certificate containing the public key
corresponding to the key
used to digitally sign the JWS
MUST be the first certificate.
This MAY be followed by additional certificates, with each
subsequent certificate being the one used to certify the
previous one.
The recipient MUST validate the certificate chain according
to <xref target="RFC5280">RFC 5280</xref> and reject the signature if any
validation failure occurs.
Use of this Header Parameter is OPTIONAL.
</t>
<t>
See <xref target="x5cExample"/> for an example
<spanx style="verb">x5c</spanx> value.
</t>
</section>
<section title='"x5t" (X.509 Certificate SHA-1 Thumbprint) Header Parameter' anchor="x5tDef">
<t>
The <spanx style="verb">x5t</spanx> (X.509 Certificate SHA-1 Thumbprint)
Header Parameter is a base64url encoded
SHA-1 thumbprint (a.k.a. digest) of the DER encoding of
the X.509 certificate <xref target="RFC5280"/>
corresponding to the key
used to digitally sign the JWS.
Note that certificate thumbprints are also sometimes known as certificate fingerprints.
Use of this Header Parameter is OPTIONAL.
</t>
</section>
<section title='"x5t#S256" (X.509 Certificate SHA-256 Thumbprint) Header Parameter' anchor="x5tS256Def">
<t>
The <spanx style="verb">x5t#S256</spanx> (X.509 Certificate SHA-256 Thumbprint)
Header Parameter is a base64url encoded
SHA-256 thumbprint (a.k.a. digest) of the DER encoding of
the X.509 certificate <xref target="RFC5280"/>
corresponding to the key
used to digitally sign the JWS.
Note that certificate thumbprints are also sometimes known as certificate fingerprints.
Use of this Header Parameter is OPTIONAL.
</t>
</section>
<section title='"typ" (Type) Header Parameter' anchor="typDef">
<t>
The <spanx style="verb">typ</spanx> (type) Header Parameter
is used by JWS applications to declare the
MIME Media Type <xref target="IANA.MediaTypes"/>
of this complete JWS object.
This is intended for use by the application when
more than one kind of object could be present in
an application data structure that can contain a JWS object;
the application can use this value to disambiguate among
the different kinds of objects that might be present.
It will typically not be used by applications when
the kind of object is already known.
This parameter is ignored by JWS implementations;
any processing of this parameter is performed by the JWS application.
Use of this Header Parameter is OPTIONAL.
</t>
<t>
Per <xref target="RFC2045">RFC 2045</xref>, all media type values,
subtype values, and parameter names are case-insensitive.
However, parameter values are case-sensitive unless
otherwise specified for the specific parameter.
</t>
<t>
To keep messages compact in common situations,
it is RECOMMENDED that producers omit an "application/" prefix
of a media type value in a <spanx style="verb">typ</spanx>
Header Parameter when no other '/' appears in the media type value.
A recipient using the media type value MUST treat it as if
"application/" were prepended to any
<spanx style="verb">typ</spanx> value not containing a '/'.
For instance, a <spanx style="verb">typ</spanx> value of
<spanx style="verb">example</spanx> SHOULD be used to represent
the <spanx style="verb">application/example</spanx> media type;
whereas, the media type
<spanx style="verb">application/example;part="1/2"</spanx> cannot
be shortened to <spanx style="verb">example;part="1/2"</spanx>.
</t>
<t>
The <spanx style="verb">typ</spanx> value
<spanx style="verb">JOSE</spanx> can be used by applications
to indicate that this object is a JWS or JWE using
the JWS Compact Serialization or the JWE Compact Serialization.
The <spanx style="verb">typ</spanx> value
<spanx style="verb">JOSE+JSON</spanx> can be used by applications
to indicate that this object is a JWS or JWE using
the JWS JSON Serialization or the JWE JSON Serialization.
Other type values can also be used by applications.
</t>
</section>
<section title='"cty" (Content Type) Header Parameter' anchor="ctyDef">
<t>
The <spanx style="verb">cty</spanx> (content type) Header Parameter
is used by JWS applications to declare the
MIME Media Type <xref target="IANA.MediaTypes"/>
of the secured content (the payload).
This is intended for use by the application when
more than one kind of object could be present in
the JWS payload;
the application can use this value to disambiguate among
the different kinds of objects that might be present.
It will typically not be used by applications when
the kind of object is already known.
This parameter is ignored by JWS implementations;
any processing of this parameter is performed by the JWS application.
Use of this Header Parameter is OPTIONAL.
</t>
<t>
Per <xref target="RFC2045">RFC 2045</xref>, all media type values,
subtype values, and parameter names are case-insensitive.
However, parameter values are case-sensitive unless
otherwise specified for the specific parameter.
</t>
<t>
To keep messages compact in common situations,
it is RECOMMENDED that producers omit an "application/" prefix
of a media type value in a <spanx style="verb">cty</spanx>
Header Parameter when no other '/' appears in the media type value.
A recipient using the media type value MUST treat it as if
"application/" were prepended to any
<spanx style="verb">cty</spanx> value not containing a '/'.
For instance, a <spanx style="verb">cty</spanx> value of
<spanx style="verb">example</spanx> SHOULD be used to represent
the <spanx style="verb">application/example</spanx> media type;
whereas, the media type
<spanx style="verb">application/example;part="1/2"</spanx> cannot
be shortened to <spanx style="verb">example;part="1/2"</spanx>.
</t>
</section>
<section title='"crit" (Critical) Header Parameter' anchor="critDef">
<t>
The <spanx style="verb">crit</spanx> (critical) Header Parameter
indicates that extensions to the initial RFC versions of
[[ this specification ]] and <xref target="JWA"/> are being used
that MUST be understood and processed.
Its value is an array listing the Header Parameter names
present in the JOSE Header that use those extensions.
If any of the listed extension Header Parameters are not
understood and supported by the recipient, it MUST reject the JWS.
Producers MUST NOT include Header Parameter names defined by
the initial RFC versions of
[[ this specification ]] or <xref target="JWA"/> for use with JWS,
duplicate names, or
names that do not occur as Header Parameter names within the JOSE Header
in the <spanx style="verb">crit</spanx> list.
Producers MUST NOT use the empty list <spanx style="verb">[]</spanx>
as the <spanx style="verb">crit</spanx> value.
Recipients MAY reject the JWS if the critical list
contains any Header Parameter names defined by the initial RFC versions of
[[ this specification ]] or <xref target="JWA"/> for use with JWS,
or any other constraints on its use are violated.
When used, this Header Parameter MUST be integrity protected;
therefore, it MUST occur only within the JWS Protected Header.
Use of this Header Parameter is OPTIONAL.
This Header Parameter MUST be understood and processed by implementations.
</t>
<t>
<figure>
<preamble>
An example use, along with a hypothetical
<spanx style="verb">exp</spanx> (expiration-time) field is:
</preamble>
<artwork><![CDATA[
{"alg":"ES256",
"crit":["exp"],
"exp":1363284000
}
]]></artwork>
</figure>
</t>
</section>
</section>
<section title="Public Header Parameter Names" anchor="PublicHeaderParameterName">
<t>
Additional Header Parameter names can be defined by those
using JWSs. However, in order to prevent collisions, any new
Header Parameter name should either be registered in the IANA
JSON Web Signature and Encryption Header Parameters registry
defined in
<xref target="HdrReg" /> or be a Public Name:
a value that contains a Collision-Resistant Name.
In each case, the definer of the name
or value needs to take reasonable precautions to make sure they
are in control of the part of the namespace they use to
define the Header Parameter name.
</t>
<t>
New Header Parameters should be introduced sparingly, as
they can result in non-interoperable JWSs.
</t>
</section>
<section title="Private Header Parameter Names" anchor="PrivateHeaderParameterName">
<t>
A producer and consumer of a JWS may agree to use Header Parameter names
that are Private Names: names that are
not Registered Header Parameter names <xref target="RegisteredHeaderParameterName"/>
or Public Header Parameter names <xref target="PublicHeaderParameterName"/>.
Unlike Public Header Parameter names,
Private Header Parameter names are subject to collision and
should be used with caution.
</t>
</section>
</section>
<section title="Producing and Consuming JWSs" anchor="JWSRules">
<section title="Message Signature or MAC Computation" anchor="MessageSignature">
<t>
To create a JWS, one MUST perform these steps.
The order of the steps is not significant in cases where
there are no dependencies between the inputs and outputs of the steps.
<list style="numbers">
<t>
Create the content to be used as the JWS Payload.
</t>
<t>
Compute the encoded payload value BASE64URL(JWS Payload).
</t>
<t>
Create the JSON object(s) containing the desired set of Header Parameters,
which together comprise the JOSE Header:
if the JWS Compact Serialization is being used,
the JWS Protected Header, or if the JWS JSON Serialization is being used,
the JWS Protected Header and/or the JWS Unprotected Header.
</t>
<t>
Compute the encoded header value BASE64URL(UTF8(JWS Protected Header)).
If the JWS Protected Header is not present
(which can only happen when using the JWS JSON Serialization
and no <spanx style="verb">protected</spanx> member is present),
let this value be the empty string.
</t>
<t>
Compute the JWS Signature in the manner defined for
the particular algorithm being used over the JWS Signing Input
ASCII(BASE64URL(UTF8(JWS Protected Header)) || '.' || BASE64URL(JWS Payload)).
The <spanx style="verb">alg</spanx> (algorithm) Header Parameter MUST be
present in the JOSE Header, with the algorithm value
accurately representing the algorithm used to construct
the JWS Signature.
</t>
<t>
Compute the encoded signature value BASE64URL(JWS Signature).
</t>
<t>
If the JWS JSON Serialization is being used, repeat this process
(steps 3-6) <!-- TBD Make sure that these numbers are correct -->
for each digital signature or MAC operation being performed.
</t>
<t>
Create the desired serialized output.
The JWS Compact Serialization of this result is
BASE64URL(UTF8(JWS Protected Header))
|| '.' || BASE64URL(JWS Payload)
|| '.' || BASE64URL(JWS Signature).
The JWS JSON Serialization is described in <xref target="JSONSerialization"/>.
</t>
</list>
</t>
</section>
<section title="Message Signature or MAC Validation" anchor="MessageValidation">
<t>
When validating a JWS, the following steps MUST be taken.
The order of the steps is not significant in cases where
there are no dependencies between the inputs and outputs of the steps.
If any of the listed steps fails, then the signature or MAC cannot be validated.
</t>
<t>
When there are multiple JWS Signature values,
it is an application decision which of the JWS Signature values
must successfully validate for the JWS to be accepted.
In some cases, all must successfully validate or the JWS will be rejected.
In other cases, only a specific JWS signature value
needs to be successfully validated.
However, in all cases, at least one JWS signature value
MUST successfully validate or the JWS MUST be rejected.
</t>
<t>
<list style="numbers">
<t>
Parse the JWS representation to extract the serialized values
for the components of the JWS.
When using the JWS Compact Serialization,
these components are
the base64url encoded representations of
the JWS Protected Header,
the JWS Payload, and
the JWS Signature,
and when using the JWS JSON Serialization,
these components also include the unencoded JWS Unprotected Header value.
When using the JWS Compact Serialization,
the JWS Protected Header,
the JWS Payload, and
the JWS Signature
are represented as base64url encoded values in that order,
with each value being separated from the next by a single period ('.') character,
resulting in exactly two delimiting period characters being used.
The JWS JSON Serialization
is described in <xref target="JSONSerialization"/>.
</t>
<t>
Base64url decode the encoded representation of the
JWS Protected Header,
following the restriction that no line breaks, white space, or other additional characters have been used.
</t>
<t>
Verify that the resulting octet sequence
is a UTF-8 encoded representation of
a completely valid JSON object
conforming to <xref target="RFC7159">RFC 7159</xref>;
let the JWS Protected Header be this JSON object.
</t>
<t>
If using the JWS Compact Serialization, let the JOSE Header be the
JWS Protected Header.
Otherwise, when using the JWS JSON Serialization,
let the JOSE Header be the union of
the members of the corresponding JWS Protected Header
and JWS Unprotected Header,
all of which must be completely valid JSON objects.
During this step,
verify that the resulting JOSE Header does not contain duplicate
Header Parameter names.
When using the JWS JSON Serialization, this restriction includes
that the same Header Parameter name also MUST NOT occur in
distinct JSON object values that together comprise the JOSE Header.
</t>
<t>
Verify that the implementation understands and can process
all fields that it is required to support,
whether required by this specification,
by the algorithm being used,
or by the <spanx style="verb">crit</spanx> Header Parameter value,
and that the values of those parameters are also understood and supported.
</t>
<t>
Base64url decode the encoded representation of the
JWS Payload,
following the restriction that no line breaks, white space, or other additional characters have been used.
</t>
<t>
Base64url decode the encoded representation of the
JWS Signature,
following the restriction that no line breaks, white space, or other additional characters have been used.
</t>
<t>
Validate the JWS Signature
against the JWS Signing Input
ASCII(BASE64URL(UTF8(JWS Protected Header)) || '.' || BASE64URL(JWS Payload))
in the manner defined for the algorithm being used, which
MUST be accurately represented by the value of the <spanx style="verb">alg</spanx> (algorithm)
Header Parameter, which MUST be present.
See <xref target="AlgValidation"/> for security considerations on algorithm validation.
Record whether the validation succeeded or not.
</t>
<t>
If the JWS JSON Serialization is being used, repeat this process
(steps 4-8) <!-- TBD Make sure that these numbers are correct -->
for each digital signature or MAC value contained in the representation.
</t>
<t>
If none of the validations in step 9 <!-- TBD Make sure that this number is correct -->
succeeded, then the JWS MUST be rejected.
Otherwise, in the JWS JSON Serialization case, return a result to the application
indicating which of the validations succeeded and failed.
In the JWS Compact Serialization case, the result
can simply indicate whether the JWS was accepted or rejected.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
Finally, note that it is an application decision which algorithms
may be used in a given context.
Even if a JWS can be successfully validated,
unless the algorithm(s) used in the JWS are acceptable
to the application, it SHOULD reject the JWS.
</t>
</section>
<section title="String Comparison Rules" anchor="StringComparison">
<t>
Processing a JWS inevitably requires comparing known strings
to members and values in JSON objects. For example, in checking what the
algorithm is, the Unicode string
<spanx style="verb">alg</spanx> will be
checked against the member names in the JOSE Header
to see if there is a matching Header Parameter name.
The same process is then used to determine if the value
of the <spanx style="verb">alg</spanx> Header Parameter
represents a supported algorithm.
</t>
<t>
The JSON rules for doing member name comparison are described in
Section 8.3 of <xref target="RFC7159">RFC 7159</xref>.
Since the only string comparison operations that are performed are
equality and inequality, the same rules can be used for comparing
both member names and member values against known strings.
</t>
<t>
These comparison rules MUST be used for all JSON string comparisons
except in cases where the definition of the member explicitly calls out that
a different comparison rule is to be used for that member value.
Only the <spanx style="verb">typ</spanx> and <spanx style="verb">cty</spanx>
member values defined in this specification do not use these comparison rules.
</t>
<t>
Some applications may include case-insensitive information in
a case-sensitive value, such as including a DNS name as part of
a <spanx style="verb">kid</spanx> (key ID) value.
In those cases, the application may need to define a convention
for the canonical case to use for representing the case-insensitive portions,
such as lowercasing them, if more than one party might need to
produce the same value so that they can be compared.
(However if all other parties consume whatever value the producing party
emitted verbatim without attempting to compare it to an independently produced
value, then the case used by the producer will not matter.)
</t>
<t>
Also, see the JSON security considerations in <xref target="JSONSecCon"/> and
the Unicode security considerations in <xref target="UnicodeSecCon"/>.
</t>
</section>
</section>
<section title="Key Identification" anchor="IDingKeys">
<t>
It is necessary for the recipient of a JWS to be able to determine
the key that was employed for the digital signature or MAC operation.
The key employed can be identified using the
Header Parameter methods described in <xref
target="RegisteredHeaderParameterName" /> or can be identified
using methods that are outside the scope of this specification.
Specifically, the Header Parameters
<spanx style="verb">jku</spanx>,
<spanx style="verb">jwk</spanx>,
<spanx style="verb">kid</spanx>,
<spanx style="verb">x5u</spanx>,
<spanx style="verb">x5c</spanx>,
<spanx style="verb">x5t</spanx>,
and <spanx style="verb">x5t#S256</spanx>
can be used to identify the key used.
These Header Parameters MUST be integrity protected if the
information that they convey is to be utilized in a trust decision.
</t>
<t>
The producer SHOULD include sufficient information in the Header Parameters
to identify the key used, unless the application uses another means
or convention to determine the key used.
Validation of the signature or MAC fails when
the algorithm used requires a key
(which is true of all algorithms except for <spanx style="verb">none</spanx>) and
the key used cannot be determined.
</t>
<t>
The means of exchanging any shared symmetric keys used
is outside the scope of this specification.
</t>
<t>
Also, see <xref target="KeySelectionNotes"/> for
notes on possible key selection algorithms.
</t>
</section>
<section title="Serializations" anchor="Serializations">
<t>
JWS objects use one of two serializations, the
JWS Compact Serialization
or the
JWS JSON Serialization.
Applications using this specification need to specify what serialization
and serialization features are used for that application.
For instance, applications might specify
that only the JWS JSON Serialization is used,
that only JWS JSON Serialization support for a single signature or MAC value is used,
or that support for multiple signatures and/or MAC values is used.
JWS implementations only need to implement the features needed
for the applications they are designed to support.
</t>
<section title="JWS Compact Serialization" anchor="CompactSerialization">
<t>
The JWS Compact Serialization represents digitally signed or MACed
content as a compact, URL-safe string.
This string is:
</t>
<t>
<?rfc subcompact="yes"?>
<list style="empty">
<t>BASE64URL(UTF8(JWS Protected Header)) || '.' ||</t>
<t>BASE64URL(JWS Payload) || '.' ||</t>
<t>BASE64URL(JWS Signature)</t>
</list>
<?rfc subcompact="no"?>
</t>
<t>
Only one signature/MAC is supported by the JWS Compact Serialization
and it provides no syntax to represent a JWS Unprotected Header value.
</t>
</section>
<section title="JWS JSON Serialization" anchor="JSONSerialization">
<t>
The JWS JSON Serialization represents digitally signed or MACed
content as a JSON object.
Content using
the JWS JSON Serialization can be secured with more than one
digital signature and/or MAC operation.
This representation is neither optimized for compactness nor URL-safe.
</t>
<t>
The following members are defined for use in
top-level JSON objects used for the JWS JSON Serialization:
</t>
<t>
<list style="hanging">
<t hangText="payload">
<vspace/>
The <spanx style="verb">payload</spanx> member MUST be present and contain the value
BASE64URL(JWS Payload).
</t>
<t hangText="signatures">
<vspace/>
The <spanx style="verb">signatures</spanx> member value MUST be
an array of JSON objects.
Each object represents a signature or MAC over the JWS Payload
and the JWS Protected Header.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
The following members are defined for use in
the JSON objects that are elements of
the <spanx style="verb">signatures</spanx> array:
</t>
<t>
<list style="hanging">
<t hangText="protected">
<vspace/>
The <spanx style="verb">protected</spanx> member MUST be present and contain the value
BASE64URL(UTF8(JWS Protected Header)) when the JWS Protected Header
value is non-empty; otherwise, it MUST be absent.
These Header Parameter values are integrity protected.
</t>
<t hangText="header">
<vspace/>
The <spanx style="verb">header</spanx> member MUST be present and contain the value
JWS Unprotected Header when the JWS Unprotected Header
value is non-empty; otherwise, it MUST be absent.
This value is represented as an unencoded JSON object,
rather than as a string.
These Header Parameter values are not integrity protected.
</t>
<t hangText="signature">
<vspace/>
The <spanx style="verb">signature</spanx> member MUST be present and contain the value
BASE64URL(JWS Signature).
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
At least one of the
<spanx style="verb">protected</spanx> and
<spanx style="verb">header</spanx>
members MUST be present for each signature/MAC computation
so that an <spanx style="verb">alg</spanx>
Header Parameter value is conveyed.
</t>
<t>
Additional members can be present in both the JSON objects defined above;
if not understood by implementations encountering them, they MUST be ignored.
</t>
<t>
The Header Parameter values used when creating or validating
individual signature or MAC values are
the union of the two sets of Header Parameter values that may be present:
(1) the JWS Protected Header
represented in the <spanx style="verb">protected</spanx>
member of the signature/MAC's array element, and
(2) the JWS Unprotected Header
in the <spanx style="verb">header</spanx>
member of the signature/MAC's array element.
The union of these sets of Header Parameters comprises the JOSE Header.
The Header Parameter names in the two locations MUST be disjoint.
</t>
<t>
Each JWS Signature value is computed using the
parameters of the corresponding JOSE Header value
in the same manner as for the JWS Compact Serialization.
This has the desirable property that each
JWS Signature value represented
in the <spanx style="verb">signatures</spanx> array
is identical to the value
that would have been computed for the same parameter
in the JWS Compact Serialization,
provided that the JWS Protected Header value
for that signature/MAC computation
(which represents the integrity-protected Header Parameter values)
matches that used in
the JWS Compact Serialization.
</t>
<figure>
<preamble>
In summary,
the syntax of a JWS using the JWS JSON Serialization is as follows:
</preamble>
<artwork><![CDATA[
{
"payload":"<payload contents>",
"signatures":[
{"protected":"<integrity-protected header 1 contents>",
"header":<non-integrity-protected header 1 contents>,
"signature":"<signature 1 contents>"},
...
{"protected":"<integrity-protected header N contents>",
"header":<non-integrity-protected header N contents>,
"signature":"<signature N contents>"}]
}
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
See <xref target="JSONSerializationExample"/> for an example
of computing a JWS using the JWS JSON Serialization.
</t>
</section>
</section>
<section anchor="TLS_requirements" title="TLS Requirements">
<t>
Implementations MUST support TLS.
Which version(s) ought to be implemented will vary over
time, and depend on the widespread deployment and known
security vulnerabilities at the time of implementation.
At the time of this writing,
TLS version 1.2 <xref target='RFC5246' />
is the most recent version.
</t>
<t>
To protect against information disclosure and tampering,
confidentiality protection MUST be applied using TLS
with a ciphersuite that provides confidentiality and
integrity protection.
See current publications by the IETF TLS working group,
including <xref target="RFC6176">RFC 6176</xref>,
for guidance on the ciphersuites currently considered to be appropriate for use.
Also, see <xref target="I-D.ietf-uta-tls-bcp">Recommendations for Secure Use of TLS and DTLS</xref>
for recommendations on improving the security of software and services using TLS.
</t>
<t>
Whenever TLS is used, the identity of the service provider encoded
in the TLS server certificate MUST be verified using the procedures
described in Section 6 of <xref target="RFC6125">RFC 6125</xref>.
TLS is used by the <spanx style="verb">jku</spanx> and
<spanx style="verb">x5u</spanx> Header Parameters
defined by this specification.
</t>
</section>
<section title="IANA Considerations" anchor="IANA">
<t>
The following registration procedure is used for all the
registries established by this specification.
</t>
<t>
Values are registered on a Specification Required
<xref target="RFC5226"/> basis after a three-week review period on the [TBD]@ietf.org mailing
list, on the advice of one or more Designated Experts. However, to allow for the
allocation of values prior to publication, the Designated Expert(s) may approve
registration once they are satisfied that such a specification will be published.
</t>
<t>
Registration requests must be sent to the [TBD]@ietf.org mailing list for review and
comment, with an appropriate subject (e.g., "Request for access token type: example").
[[ Note to the RFC Editor:
The name of the mailing list should be determined in consultation
with the IESG and IANA. Suggested name: jose-reg-review. ]]
</t>
<t>
Within the review period, the Designated Expert(s) will either approve or
deny the registration request, communicating this decision to the review list and IANA.
Denials should include an explanation and, if applicable, suggestions as to how to make
the request successful.
Registration requests that are undetermined for
a period longer than 21 days can be brought to the IESG's attention
(using the iesg@ietf.org mailing list) for resolution.
</t>
<t>
Criteria that should be applied by the Designated Expert(s) includes
determining whether the proposed registration duplicates existing functionality,
determining whether it is likely to be of general applicability
or whether it is useful only for a single application,
and whether the registration description is clear.
</t>
<t>
IANA must only accept registry updates from the Designated Expert(s) and should direct
all requests for registration to the review mailing list.
</t>
<t>
It is suggested that multiple Designated Experts be appointed who are able to
represent the perspectives of different applications using this specification,
in order to enable broadly-informed review of registration decisions.
In cases where a registration decision could be perceived as
creating a conflict of interest for a particular Expert,
that Expert should defer to the judgment of the other Expert(s).
</t>
<t>
[[ Note to the RFC Editor and IANA:
Pearl Liang of ICANN had requested that the draft supply the following
proposed registry description information.
It is to be used for all registries established by this specification.
<list style="symbols">
<t>
Protocol Category: JSON Object Signing and Encryption (JOSE)
</t>
<t>
Registry Location: http://www.iana.org/assignments/jose
</t>
<t>
Webpage Title: (same as the protocol category)
</t>
<t>
Registry Name: (same as the section title, but excluding the word "Registry",
for example "JSON Web Signature and Encryption Header Parameters")
</t>
</list>
]]
</t>
<section title="JSON Web Signature and Encryption Header Parameters Registry" anchor="HdrReg">
<t>
This specification establishes the
IANA JSON Web Signature and Encryption Header Parameters registry
for Header Parameter names.
The registry records the Header Parameter name
and a reference to the specification that defines it.
The same Header Parameter name can be registered multiple times,
provided that the parameter usage is compatible
between the specifications.
Different registrations of the same Header Parameter name
will typically use different
Header Parameter Usage Location(s) values.
</t>
<section title="Registration Template" anchor="HdrTemplate">
<t>
<list style='hanging'>
<t hangText='Header Parameter Name:'>
<vspace/>
The name requested (e.g., "kid").
Because a core goal of this specification is for the resulting
representations to be compact, it is RECOMMENDED that the name be short
-- not to exceed 8 characters without a compelling reason to do so.
This name is case-sensitive.
Names may not match other registered names in a case-insensitive manner
unless the Designated Expert(s) state that there is a compelling reason
to allow an exception in this particular case.
</t>
<t hangText='Header Parameter Description:'>
<vspace/>
Brief description of the Header Parameter (e.g., "Key ID").
</t>
<t hangText='Header Parameter Usage Location(s):'>
<vspace/>
The Header Parameter usage locations, which should be one or more of the values
<spanx style="verb">JWS</spanx> or
<spanx style="verb">JWE</spanx>.
</t>
<t hangText='Change Controller:'>
<vspace/>
For Standards Track RFCs, state "IESG". For others, give the name of the
responsible party. Other details (e.g., postal address, email address, home page
URI) may also be included.
</t>
<t hangText='Specification Document(s):'>
<vspace/>
Reference to the document(s) that specify the parameter, preferably including URI(s) that
can be used to retrieve copies of the document(s). An indication of the relevant
sections may also be included but is not required.
</t>
</list>
</t>
</section>
<section title="Initial Registry Contents" anchor="HdrContents">
<t>
This specification registers the Header Parameter names defined in
<xref target="RegisteredHeaderParameterName"/> in this registry.
</t>
<t> <?rfc subcompact="yes"?>
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Header Parameter Name: <spanx style="verb">alg</spanx>
</t>
<t>
Header Parameter Description: Algorithm
</t>
<t>
Header Parameter Usage Location(s): JWS
</t>
<t>
Change Controller: IESG
</t>
<t>
Specification Document(s): <xref target="algDef"/> of [[ this document ]]
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Header Parameter Name: <spanx style="verb">jku</spanx>
</t>
<t>
Header Parameter Description: JWK Set URL
</t>
<t>
Header Parameter Usage Location(s): JWS
</t>
<t>
Change Controller: IESG
</t>
<t>
Specification Document(s): <xref target="jkuDef"/> of [[ this document ]]
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Header Parameter Name: <spanx style="verb">jwk</spanx>
</t>
<t>
Header Parameter Description: JSON Web Key
</t>
<t>
Header Parameter Usage Location(s): JWS
</t>
<t>
Change Controller: IESG
</t>
<t>
Specification document(s): <xref target="jwkDef"/> of [[ this document ]]
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Header Parameter Name: <spanx style="verb">kid</spanx>
</t>
<t>
Header Parameter Description: Key ID
</t>
<t>
Header Parameter Usage Location(s): JWS
</t>
<t>
Change Controller: IESG
</t>
<t>
Specification Document(s): <xref target="kidDef"/> of [[ this document ]]
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Header Parameter Name: <spanx style="verb">x5u</spanx>
</t>
<t>
Header Parameter Description: X.509 URL
</t>
<t>
Header Parameter Usage Location(s): JWS
</t>
<t>
Change Controller: IESG
</t>
<t>
Specification Document(s): <xref target="x5uDef"/> of [[ this document ]]
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Header Parameter Name: <spanx style="verb">x5c</spanx>
</t>
<t>
Header Parameter Description: X.509 Certificate Chain
</t>
<t>
Header Parameter Usage Location(s): JWS
</t>
<t>
Change Controller: IESG
</t>
<t>
Specification Document(s): <xref target="x5cDef"/> of [[ this document ]]
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Header Parameter Name: <spanx style="verb">x5t</spanx>
</t>
<t>
Header Parameter Description: X.509 Certificate SHA-1 Thumbprint
</t>
<t>
Header Parameter Usage Location(s): JWS
</t>
<t>
Change Controller: IESG
</t>
<t>
Specification Document(s): <xref target="x5tDef"/> of [[ this document ]]
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Header Parameter Name: <spanx style="verb">x5t#S256</spanx>
</t>
<t>
Header Parameter Description: X.509 Certificate SHA-256 Thumbprint
</t>
<t>
Header Parameter Usage Location(s): JWS
</t>
<t>
Change Controller: IESG
</t>
<t>
Specification Document(s): <xref target="x5tS256Def"/> of [[ this document ]]
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Header Parameter Name: <spanx style="verb">typ</spanx>
</t>
<t>
Header Parameter Description: Type
</t>
<t>
Header Parameter Usage Location(s): JWS
</t>
<t>
Change Controller: IESG
</t>
<t>
Specification Document(s): <xref target="typDef"/> of [[ this document ]]
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Header Parameter Name: <spanx style="verb">cty</spanx>
</t>
<t>
Header Parameter Description: Content Type
</t>
<t>
Header Parameter Usage Location(s): JWS
</t>
<t>
Change Controller: IESG
</t>
<t>
Specification Document(s): <xref target="ctyDef"/> of [[ this document ]]
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Header Parameter Name: <spanx style="verb">crit</spanx>
</t>
<t>
Header Parameter Description: Critical
</t>
<t>
Header Parameter Usage Location(s): JWS
</t>
<t>
Change Controller: IESG
</t>
<t>
Specification Document(s): <xref target="critDef"/> of [[ this document ]]
</t>
</list>
</t>
</section>
<?rfc subcompact="no"?>
</section>
<section title="Media Type Registration" anchor="MediaReg">
<section title="Registry Contents" anchor="MediaContents">
<t>
This specification registers the
<spanx style="verb">application/jose</spanx>
Media Type <xref target="RFC2046"/>
in the MIME Media Types registry <xref target="IANA.MediaTypes"/>
in the manner described in <xref target="RFC6838">RFC 6838</xref>,
which can be used to indicate that the content is
a JWS or JWE object using
the JWS Compact Serialization or the JWE Compact Serialization
and the
<spanx style="verb">application/jose+json</spanx>
Media Type in the MIME Media Types registry,
which can be used to indicate that the content is
a JWS or JWE object using
the JWS JSON Serialization or the JWE JSON Serialization.
</t>
<t> <?rfc subcompact="yes"?>
<list style="symbols">
<t>
Type name: application
</t>
<t>
Subtype name: jose
</t>
<t>
Required parameters: n/a
</t>
<t>
Optional parameters: n/a
</t>
<t>
Encoding considerations: 8bit;
application/jose values are encoded as a
series of base64url encoded values (some of which may be the
empty string) each separated from the next by a single period ('.') character.
</t>
<t>
Security considerations: See the Security Considerations section of [[ this document ]]
</t>
<t>
Interoperability considerations: n/a
</t>
<t>
Published specification: [[ this document ]]
</t>
<t>
Applications that use this media type:
OpenID Connect, Mozilla Persona, Salesforce, Google, Android,
Windows Azure, Xbox One, and numerous others that use JWTs
</t>
<t>
Fragment identifier considerations: n/a
</t>
<t>
Additional information:
Magic number(s): n/a,
File extension(s): n/a,
Macintosh file type code(s): n/a
</t>
<t>
Person & email address to contact for further information:
Michael B. Jones, mbj@microsoft.com
</t>
<t>
Intended usage: COMMON
</t>
<t>
Restrictions on usage: none
</t>
<t>
Author: Michael B. Jones, mbj@microsoft.com
</t>
<t>
Change Controller: IESG
</t>
<t>
Provisional registration? No
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
<list style="symbols">
<t>
Type name: application
</t>
<t>
Subtype name: jose+json
</t>
<t>
Required parameters: n/a
</t>
<t>
Optional parameters: n/a
</t>
<t>
Encoding considerations: 8bit;
application/jose+json values are represented as a JSON Object;
UTF-8 encoding SHOULD be employed for the JSON object.
</t>
<t>
Security considerations: See the Security Considerations section of [[ this document ]]
</t>
<t>
Interoperability considerations: n/a
</t>
<t>
Published specification: [[ this document ]]
</t>
<t>
Applications that use this media type:
TBD
</t>
<t>
Fragment identifier considerations: n/a
</t>
<t>
Additional information:
Magic number(s): n/a,
File extension(s): n/a,
Macintosh file type code(s): n/a
</t>
<t>
Person & email address to contact for further information:
Michael B. Jones, mbj@microsoft.com
</t>
<t>
Intended usage: COMMON
</t>
<t>
Restrictions on usage: none
</t>
<t>
Author: Michael B. Jones, mbj@microsoft.com
</t>
<t>
Change Controller: IESG
</t>
<t>
Provisional registration? No
</t>
</list>
</t>
</section>
<?rfc subcompact="no"?>
</section>
</section>
<section title="Security Considerations" anchor="Security">
<t>
All of the security issues that are pertinent to any cryptographic application
must be addressed by JWS/JWE/JWK agents. Among these issues are protecting
the user's asymmetric private and symmetric secret keys and
employing countermeasures to various attacks.
</t>
<t>
All the security considerations in
<xref target="W3C.NOTE-xmldsig-core2-20130411">XML DSIG 2.0</xref>,
also apply to this specification, other than those that are XML specific.
Likewise, many of the best practices documented in
<xref target="W3C.NOTE-xmldsig-bestpractices-20130411">XML Signature Best Practices</xref>
also apply to this specification,
other than those that are XML specific.
</t>
<section title="Key Entropy and Random Values" anchor="KeyEntropy">
<t>
Keys are only as strong as the amount of entropy used to
generate them. A minimum of 128 bits of entropy should be
used for all keys, and depending upon the application context,
more may be required.
</t>
<t>
Implementations must randomly generate public/private key pairs,
message authentication (MAC) keys, and padding values.
The use of inadequate pseudo-random number
generators (PRNGs) to generate cryptographic keys can result in
little or no security. An attacker may find it much easier to
reproduce the PRNG environment that produced the keys, searching the
resulting small set of possibilities, rather than brute force
searching the whole key space. The generation of quality random
numbers is difficult.
<xref target="RFC4086">RFC 4086</xref> offers important guidance in
this area.
</t>
</section>
<section title="Key Protection" anchor="KeyProtection">
<t>
Implementations must protect the signer's private key. Compromise of
the signer's private key permits an attacker to masquerade as the signer.
</t>
<t>
Implementations must protect the message authentication (MAC) key.
Compromise of the MAC key may result in undetectable
modification of the authenticated content.
</t>
</section>
<section title="Key Origin Authentication" anchor="KeyOrigin">
<t>
The key management technique employed to obtain public keys
must authenticate the origin of the key;
otherwise, it is unknown what party signed the message.
</t>
<t>
Likewise, the key management technique employed to distribute MAC
keys must provide data origin authentication;
otherwise, the contents are delivered with integrity from an unknown
source.
</t>
</section>
<section title="Cryptographic Agility" anchor="CryptoAgility">
<t>
See Section 8.1 of <xref target="JWA"/> for security considerations on
cryptographic agility.
</t>
</section>
<section title="Differences between Digital Signatures and MACs"
anchor="SignaturesAndMacs">
<t>
While MACs and digital signatures can both be used for
integrity checking, there are some significant differences between
the security properties that each of them provides.
These need to be taken into consideration when designing protocols and
selecting the algorithms to be used in protocols.
</t>
<t>
Both signatures and MACs provide for integrity checking -- verifying that
the message has not been modified since the integrity value was computed.
However, MACs provide for origination identification only under
specific circumstances.
It can normally be assumed that a private key used for a signature
is only in the hands of a single entity
(although perhaps a distributed entity, in the case of replicated servers);
however, a MAC key needs to be in the hands of all the entities that use it
for integrity computation and checking.
Validation of a MAC only provides corroboration that the message
was generated by one of the parties that knows the symmetric MAC key.
This means that origination can only be determined if a MAC key is known only
to two entities and the recipient knows that it did not create the message.
MAC validation cannot be used to prove origination to a third party.
</t>
</section>
<section title="Algorithm Validation" anchor="AlgValidation">
<t>
The digital signature representations for some algorithms include
information about the algorithm used inside the signature value.
For instance, signatures produced with RSASSA-PKCS-v1_5
<xref target="RFC3447"/>
encode the hash function used and many libraries
actually use the hash algorithm specified inside the signature
when validating the signature.
When using such libraries, as part of the algorithm validation
performed, implementations MUST ensure
that the algorithm information encoded in the signature
corresponds to that specified with the
<spanx style="verb">alg</spanx> Header Parameter.
If this is not done, an attacker could claim to have used
a strong hash algorithm while actually using a weak one
represented in the signature value.
</t>
</section>
<section title="Algorithm Protection" anchor="AlgProtection">
<t>
In some usages of JWS, there is a risk of algorithm substitution attacks,
in which an attacker can use an existing digital signature value with a different
signature algorithm to make it appear that a signer has signed something
that it has not. These attacks have been discussed in detail in the
context of CMS <xref target="RFC6211"/>.
This risk arises when all of the following are true:
</t>
<t>
<list style="symbols">
<t>
Verifiers of a signature support multiple algorithms.
</t>
<t>
Given an existing signature, an attacker can find another payload
that produces the same signature value with a different algorithm.
</t>
<t>
The payload crafted by the attacker is valid in the application context.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
There are several ways for an application to mitigate algorithm substitution attacks:
</t>
<t>
<list style="symbols">
<t>
Use only digital signature algorithms that are not vulnerable to substitution attacks.
Substitution attacks are only feasible if an attacker can compute
pre-images for a hash function accepted by the recipient.
All JWA-defined signature algorithms use SHA-2 hashes, for which there are
no known pre-image attacks, as of the time of this writing.
</t>
<t>
Require that the <spanx style="verb">alg</spanx> Header Parameter be
carried in the protected header.
(This is always the case when using the JWS Compact Serialization
and is the approach taken by CMS <xref target="RFC6211"/>.)
</t>
<t>
Include a field containing the algorithm in the application payload,
and require that it be matched with the <spanx style="verb">alg</spanx>
Header Parameter during verification.
(This is the approach taken by PKIX <xref target="RFC5280"/>.)
</t>
</list>
</t>
</section>
<section title="Chosen Plaintext Attacks" anchor="ChosenPlaintext">
<t>
Creators of JWSs should not allow third parties to insert
arbitrary content into the message without adding entropy
not controlled by the third party.
</t>
</section>
<section title="Timing Attacks" anchor="TimingAttacks">
<t>
When cryptographic algorithms are implemented in such a way
that successful operations take a different amount of time
than unsuccessful operations, attackers may be able to
use the time difference to obtain information about the keys
employed. Therefore, such timing differences must be avoided.
</t>
</section>
<section title="Replay Protection" anchor="ReplayProtection">
<t>
While not directly in scope for this specification, note that
applications using JWS (or JWE) objects can thwart replay attacks
by including a unique message identifier as integrity-protected content
in the JWS (or JWE) message and having the recipient verify that
the message has not been previously received or acted upon.
</t>
</section>
<section title="SHA-1 Certificate Thumbprints" anchor="SHA-1x5t">
<t>
A SHA-1 hash is used when computing
<spanx style="verb">x5t</spanx> (X.509 Certificate SHA-1 Thumbprint) values,
for compatibility reasons. Should an effective means of producing
SHA-1 hash collisions be developed, and should an attacker wish to
interfere with the use of a known certificate on a given system,
this could be accomplished by creating another certificate whose
SHA-1 hash value is the same and adding it to the certificate
store used by the intended victim. A prerequisite to this
attack succeeding is the attacker having write access to the
intended victim's certificate store.
</t>
<t>
Alternatively, the <spanx style="verb">x5t#S256</spanx>
(X.509 Certificate SHA-256 Thumbprint) Header Parameter
could be used instead of <spanx style="verb">x5t</spanx>.
However, at the time of this writing, no development platform
is known to support SHA-256 certificate thumbprints.
</t>
</section>
<section title="JSON Security Considerations" anchor="JSONSecCon">
<t>
Strict JSON <xref target="RFC7159"/> validation is a security requirement.
If malformed JSON is received, then the intent of the producer
is impossible to reliably discern.
Ambiguous and potentially exploitable situations could arise
if the JSON parser used does not reject malformed JSON syntax.
In particular, any JSON inputs not conforming to the JSON-text syntax
defined in RFC 7159 input MUST be rejected in their entirety.
</t>
<t>
Section 4 of the JSON Data Interchange Format
specification <xref target="RFC7159"/> states "The names
within an object SHOULD be unique", whereas this specification states that
"Header Parameter names within this object MUST be unique;
JWS parsers MUST either reject JWSs with duplicate Header Parameter names
or use a JSON parser that returns only the lexically last duplicate member name,
as specified in Section 15.12 (The JSON Object) of
ECMAScript 5.1 <xref target="ECMAScript"/>".
Thus, this specification requires that the Section 4 "SHOULD"
be treated as a "MUST" by producers
and that it be either treated as a "MUST" or in the manner specified in
ECMAScript 5.1 by consumers.
Ambiguous and potentially exploitable situations could arise
if the JSON parser used does not enforce the uniqueness of member names
or returns an unpredictable value for duplicate member names.
</t>
<t>
Some JSON parsers might not reject input that contains extra
significant characters after a valid input. For instance,
the input <spanx style="verb">{"tag":"value"}ABCD</spanx>
contains a valid JSON-text object followed by
the extra characters <spanx style="verb">ABCD</spanx>.
Such input MUST be rejected in its entirety.
</t>
</section>
<section title="Unicode Comparison Security Considerations" anchor="UnicodeSecCon">
<t>
Header Parameter names and algorithm names are Unicode strings. For
security reasons, the representations of these names must be
compared verbatim after performing any escape processing (as
per Section 8.3 of <xref target="RFC7159">RFC 7159</xref>).
This means, for instance, that these JSON strings must
compare as being equal ("sig", "\u0073ig"), whereas these
must all compare as being not equal to the first set or to
each other ("SIG", "Sig", "si\u0047").
</t>
<t>
JSON strings can contain characters outside the Unicode
Basic Multilingual Plane. For instance, the G clef
character (U+1D11E) may be represented in a JSON string as
"\uD834\uDD1E". Ideally, JWS implementations SHOULD ensure
that characters outside the Basic Multilingual Plane are
preserved and compared correctly; alternatively, if this is
not possible due to these characters exercising limitations
present in the underlying JSON implementation, then input
containing them MUST be rejected.
</t>
</section>
</section>
</middle>
<back>
<references title="Normative References">
<?rfc include='http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/bibxml/reference.RFC.2119.xml' ?>
<?rfc include='http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/bibxml/reference.RFC.2045.xml' ?>
<?rfc include='http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/bibxml/reference.RFC.2046.xml' ?>
<?rfc include='http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/bibxml/reference.RFC.2818.xml' ?>
<?rfc include='http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/bibxml/reference.RFC.3629.xml' ?>
<?rfc include='http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/bibxml/reference.RFC.3986.xml' ?>
<?rfc include='http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/bibxml/reference.RFC.4648.xml' ?>
<?rfc include='http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/bibxml/reference.RFC.4945.xml' ?>
<?rfc include='http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/bibxml/reference.RFC.4949.xml' ?>
<?rfc include='http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/bibxml/reference.RFC.5246.xml' ?>
<?rfc include='http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/bibxml/reference.RFC.5280.xml' ?>
<?rfc include='http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/bibxml/reference.RFC.6125.xml' ?>
<?rfc include='http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/bibxml/reference.RFC.6176.xml' ?>
<?rfc include='http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/bibxml/reference.RFC.7159.xml' ?>
<reference anchor="RFC20">
<front>
<title>ASCII format for Network Interchange</title>
<author fullname="Vint Cerf" surname="Cerf" initials="V.">
<organization>University California Los Angeles (UCLA)</organization>
</author>
<date month="October" day="16" year="1969"/>
<abstract><t>For concreteness, we suggest the use of standard 7-bit ASCII embedded in an 8 bit byte whose high order bit is always 0.</t></abstract>
</front>
<seriesInfo value="20" name="RFC"/>
<format target="http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc20.txt" octets="18504" type="TXT"/>
</reference>
<?rfc include='http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/bibxml2/reference.ITU.X690.1994.xml' ?>
<reference anchor="JWK">
<front>
<title>JSON Web Key (JWK)</title>
<author fullname="Michael B. Jones" initials="M.B." surname="Jones">
<organization>Microsoft</organization>
<address>
<email>mbj@microsoft.com</email>
<uri>http://self-issued.info/</uri>
</address>
</author>
<date day="17" month="October" year="2014"/>
</front>
<seriesInfo value="draft-ietf-jose-json-web-key" name="Internet-Draft"/>
<format target="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-jose-json-web-key" type="HTML" />
</reference>
<reference anchor="JWA">
<front>
<title>JSON Web Algorithms (JWA)</title>
<author fullname="Michael B. Jones" initials="M.B." surname="Jones">
<organization>Microsoft</organization>
<address>
<email>mbj@microsoft.com</email>
<uri>http://self-issued.info/</uri>
</address>
</author>
<date day="17" month="October" year="2014"/>
</front>
<seriesInfo value="draft-ietf-jose-json-web-algorithms" name="Internet-Draft"/>
<format target="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-jose-json-web-algorithms" type="HTML" />
</reference>
<reference anchor="ECMAScript">
<front>
<title>ECMAScript Language Specification, 5.1 Edition</title>
<author>
<organization>Ecma International</organization>
</author>
<date month="June" year="2011"/>
</front>
<seriesInfo name="ECMA" value="262"/>
<format target="http://www.ecma-international.org/ecma-262/5.1/" type="HTML" />
<format target="http://www.ecma-international.org/ecma-262/5.1/ECMA-262.pdf" type="PDF" />
</reference>
<reference anchor="IANA.MediaTypes">
<front>
<title>MIME Media Types</title>
<author>
<organization>Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)</organization>
</author>
<date year="2005"/>
</front>
<format target="http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types"
type="HTML" />
</reference>
</references>
<references title="Informative References">
<?rfc include='http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/bibxml/reference.RFC.2104.xml' ?>
<?rfc include='http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/bibxml/reference.RFC.3447.xml' ?>
<?rfc include='http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/bibxml/reference.RFC.4086.xml' ?>
<?rfc include='http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/bibxml/reference.RFC.4122.xml' ?>
<?rfc include='http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/bibxml/reference.RFC.5226.xml' ?>
<?rfc include='http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/bibxml/reference.RFC.6211.xml' ?>
<?rfc include='http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/bibxml/reference.RFC.6838.xml' ?>
<?rfc include="http://xml2rfc.tools.ietf.org/public/rfc/bibxml3/reference.I-D.draft-ietf-uta-tls-bcp-05.xml" ?>
<reference target="http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/NOTE-xmldsig-core2-20130411/" anchor="W3C.NOTE-xmldsig-core2-20130411">
<front>
<title>XML Signature Syntax and Processing Version 2.0</title>
<author fullname="Donald Eastlake" surname="Eastlake" initials="D."><organization/></author>
<author fullname="Joseph Reagle" surname="Reagle" initials="J."><organization/></author>
<author fullname="David Solo" surname="Solo" initials="D."><organization/></author>
<author fullname="Frederick Hirsch" surname="Hirsch" initials="F."><organization/></author>
<author fullname="Thomas Roessler" surname="Roessler" initials="T."><organization/></author>
<author fullname="Kelvin Yiu" surname="Yiu" initials="K."><organization/></author>
<author fullname="Pratik Datta" surname="Datta" initials="P."><organization/></author>
<author fullname="Scott Cantor" surname="Cantor" initials="S."><organization/></author>
<date year="2013" day="11" month="April"/>
</front>
<seriesInfo value="NOTE-xmldsig-core2-20130411" name="World Wide Web Consortium Note"/>
<format target="http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/NOTE-xmldsig-core2-20130411/" type="HTML"/>
</reference>
<reference target="http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/NOTE-xmldsig-bestpractices-20130411/" anchor="W3C.NOTE-xmldsig-bestpractices-20130411">
<front>
<title>XML Signature Best Practices</title>
<author fullname="Frederick Hirsch" surname="Hirsch" initials="F."><organization/></author>
<author fullname="Pratik Datta" surname="Datta" initials="P."><organization/></author>
<date year="2013" day="11" month="April"/>
</front>
<seriesInfo value="NOTE-xmldsig-bestpractices-20130411" name="World Wide Web Consortium Note"/>
<format target="http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/NOTE-xmldsig-bestpractices-20130411/" type="HTML"/>
</reference>
<reference anchor="JWT">
<front>
<title>JSON Web Token (JWT)</title>
<author fullname="Michael B. Jones" initials="M.B." surname="Jones">
<organization>Microsoft</organization>
<address>
<email>mbj@microsoft.com</email>
<uri>http://self-issued.info/</uri>
</address>
</author>
<author fullname="John Bradley" initials="J." surname="Bradley">
<organization abbrev="Ping Identity">Ping Identity</organization>
<address>
<email>ve7jtb@ve7jtb.com</email>
</address>
</author>
<author fullname="Nat Sakimura" initials="N." surname="Sakimura">
<organization abbrev="NRI">Nomura Research Institute</organization>
<address>
<email>n-sakimura@nri.co.jp</email>
</address>
</author>
<date day="17" month="October" year="2014"/>
</front>
<seriesInfo value="draft-ietf-oauth-json-web-token" name="Internet-Draft"/>
<format target="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-oauth-json-web-token" type="HTML" />
</reference>
<reference anchor="SHS">
<front>
<title>Secure Hash Standard (SHS)</title>
<author>
<organization>National Institute of Standards and
Technology</organization>
</author>
<date month="March" year="2012" />
</front>
<seriesInfo name="FIPS" value="PUB 180-4" />
<format target="http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/fips/fips180-4/fips-180-4.pdf" type="PDF" />
</reference>
<reference anchor="MagicSignatures">
<front>
<title>Magic Signatures</title>
<author fullname="John Panzer (editor)" initials="J." surname="Panzer (editor)"></author>
<author fullname="Ben Laurie" initials="B." surname="Laurie"></author>
<author fullname="Dirk Balfanz" initials="D." surname="Balfanz"></author>
<date day="7" month="January" year="2011" />
</front>
<format target="http://salmon-protocol.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/draft-panzer-magicsig-01.html" type="HTML" />
</reference>
<reference anchor="JSS">
<front>
<title>JSON Simple Sign</title>
<author fullname="John Bradley" initials="J." surname="Bradley">
<organization>independent</organization>
</author>
<author fullname="Nat Sakimura (editor)" initials="N. " surname="Sakimura (editor)">
<organization abbrev="NRI">Nomura Research Institute</organization>
</author>
<date month="September" year="2010" />
</front>
<format target="http://jsonenc.info/jss/1.0/" type="HTML" />
</reference>
<reference anchor="CanvasApp">
<front>
<title>Canvas Applications</title>
<author fullname="Facebook" surname="Facebook"></author>
<date year="2010" />
</front>
<format target="http://developers.facebook.com/docs/authentication/canvas" type="HTML" />
</reference>
<reference anchor="JWE">
<front>
<title>JSON Web Encryption (JWE)</title>
<author fullname="Michael B. Jones" initials="M.B." surname="Jones">
<organization>Microsoft</organization>
<address>
<email>mbj@microsoft.com</email>
<uri>http://self-issued.info/</uri>
</address>
</author>
<author fullname="Joe Hildebrand" initials="J." surname="Hildebrand">
<organization abbrev="Cisco">Cisco Systems, Inc.</organization>
<address>
<email>jhildebr@cisco.com</email>
</address>
</author>
<date day="17" month="October" year="2014"/>
</front>
<seriesInfo value="draft-ietf-jose-json-web-encryption" name="Internet-Draft"/>
<format target="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-jose-json-web-encryption" type="HTML" />
</reference>
</references>
<section title="JWS Examples" anchor="JWSExamples">
<t>
This section provides several examples of JWSs.
While the first three
examples all represent JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) <xref
target="JWT" />, the payload can be any
octet sequence, as shown in <xref target="ES512Example"/>.
</t>
<section title="Example JWS using HMAC SHA-256" anchor="HS256Example">
<section title="Encoding" anchor="HS256Encoding">
<t>
The following example JWS Protected Header declares that the
data structure is a JSON Web Token (JWT) <xref target="JWT" />
and the JWS Signing Input is secured using
the HMAC SHA-256 algorithm.
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
{"typ":"JWT",
"alg":"HS256"}
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
To remove potential ambiguities in the representation of the JSON object above,
the actual octet sequence representing UTF8(JWS Protected Header) used in this example
is also included below.
(Note that ambiguities can arise due to
differing platform representations of line breaks (CRLF versus LF),
differing spacing at the beginning and ends of lines,
whether the last line has a terminating line break or not,
and other causes.
In the representation used in this example,
the first line has no leading or trailing spaces,
a CRLF line break (13, 10) occurs between the first and second lines,
the second line has one leading space (32) and no trailing spaces,
and the last line does not have a terminating line break.)
The octets representing UTF8(JWS Protected Header) in this example
(using JSON array notation) are:
</t>
<t>
[123, 34, 116, 121, 112, 34, 58, 34, 74, 87, 84, 34, 44, 13, 10, 32, 34, 97, 108, 103, 34, 58, 34, 72, 83, 50, 53, 54, 34, 125]
</t>
<t>
Encoding this JWS Protected Header as
BASE64URL(UTF8(JWS Protected Header)) gives this value:
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLA0KICJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
The JWS Payload used in this example
is the octets of the UTF-8 representation of the JSON object below.
(Note that the payload can be any base64url
encoded octet sequence, and need not be a base64url encoded JSON
object.)
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
{"iss":"joe",
"exp":1300819380,
"http://example.com/is_root":true}
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
The following octet sequence, which is the UTF-8 representation
used in this example for the JSON object above, is the JWS Payload:
</t>
<t>
[123, 34, 105, 115, 115, 34, 58, 34, 106, 111, 101, 34, 44, 13, 10, 32, 34, 101, 120, 112, 34, 58, 49, 51, 48, 48, 56, 49, 57, 51, 56, 48, 44, 13, 10, 32, 34, 104, 116, 116, 112, 58, 47, 47, 101, 120, 97, 109, 112, 108, 101, 46, 99, 111, 109, 47, 105, 115, 95, 114, 111, 111, 116, 34, 58, 116, 114, 117, 101, 125]
</t>
<t>
Encoding this JWS Protected Header as
BASE64URL(UTF8(JWS Protected Header)) gives this value
(with line breaks for display purposes only):
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
eyJpc3MiOiJqb2UiLA0KICJleHAiOjEzMDA4MTkzODAsDQogImh0dHA6Ly9leGFt
cGxlLmNvbS9pc19yb290Ijp0cnVlfQ
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
Combining these as
BASE64URL(UTF8(JWS Protected Header)) || '.' || BASE64URL(JWS Payload)
gives this string
(with line breaks for display purposes only):
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLA0KICJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9
.
eyJpc3MiOiJqb2UiLA0KICJleHAiOjEzMDA4MTkzODAsDQogImh0dHA6Ly9leGFt
cGxlLmNvbS9pc19yb290Ijp0cnVlfQ
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
The resulting JWS Signing Input value,
which is the ASCII representation of above string,
is the following octet sequence (using JSON array notation):
</t>
<t>
[101, 121, 74, 48, 101, 88, 65, 105, 79, 105, 74, 75, 86, 49, 81, 105, 76, 65, 48, 75, 73, 67, 74, 104, 98, 71, 99, 105, 79, 105, 74, 73, 85, 122, 73, 49, 78, 105, 74, 57, 46, 101, 121, 74, 112, 99, 51, 77, 105, 79, 105, 74, 113, 98, 50, 85, 105, 76, 65, 48, 75, 73, 67, 74, 108, 101, 72, 65, 105, 79, 106, 69, 122, 77, 68, 65, 52, 77, 84, 107, 122, 79, 68, 65, 115, 68, 81, 111, 103, 73, 109, 104, 48, 100, 72, 65, 54, 76, 121, 57, 108, 101, 71, 70, 116, 99, 71, 120, 108, 76, 109, 78, 118, 98, 83, 57, 112, 99, 49, 57, 121, 98, 50, 57, 48, 73, 106, 112, 48, 99, 110, 86, 108, 102, 81]
</t>
<t>
HMACs are generated using keys.
This example uses the symmetric key
represented in JSON Web Key <xref target="JWK" /> format below
(with line breaks within values for display purposes only):
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
{"kty":"oct",
"k":"AyM1SysPpbyDfgZld3umj1qzKObwVMkoqQ-EstJQLr_T-1qS0gZH75
aKtMN3Yj0iPS4hcgUuTwjAzZr1Z9CAow"
}
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
Running the HMAC SHA-256 algorithm on
the JWS Signing Input
with this key yields this JWS Signature octet sequence:
</t>
<t>
[116, 24, 223, 180, 151, 153, 224, 37, 79, 250, 96, 125, 216, 173, 187, 186, 22, 212, 37, 77, 105, 214, 191, 240, 91, 88, 5, 88, 83, 132, 141, 121]
</t>
<t>
Encoding this JWS Signature as
BASE64URL(JWS Signature) gives this value:
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
dBjftJeZ4CVP-mB92K27uhbUJU1p1r_wW1gFWFOEjXk
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
Concatenating these values in the order
Header.Payload.Signature with period ('.') characters between the
parts yields this complete JWS representation
using the JWS Compact Serialization
(with line breaks for display purposes only):
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLA0KICJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9
.
eyJpc3MiOiJqb2UiLA0KICJleHAiOjEzMDA4MTkzODAsDQogImh0dHA6Ly9leGFt
cGxlLmNvbS9pc19yb290Ijp0cnVlfQ
.
dBjftJeZ4CVP-mB92K27uhbUJU1p1r_wW1gFWFOEjXk
]]></artwork></figure>
</section>
<section title="Validating" anchor="HS256Validating">
<t>
Since the <spanx style="verb">alg</spanx> Header Parameter
is <spanx style="verb">HS256</spanx>, we validate the HMAC SHA-256
value contained in the JWS Signature.
</t>
<t>
To validate the HMAC value, we repeat the previous process
of using the correct key and
the JWS Signing Input
(which is the initial substring of the JWS Compact Serialization
representation up until but not including the second period character)
as input to the HMAC SHA-256 function
and then taking the output and determining if it matches
the JWS Signature
(which is base64url decoded from the value encoded in the JWS representation).
If it matches exactly, the HMAC has been validated.
</t>
</section>
</section>
<section title="Example JWS using RSASSA-PKCS-v1_5 SHA-256" anchor="RS256Example">
<section title="Encoding" anchor="RS256Encoding">
<t>
The JWS Protected Header in this example is different
from the previous example in two ways: First, because a
different algorithm is being used, the <spanx style="verb">alg</spanx> value is
different. Second, for illustration purposes only, the
optional <spanx style="verb">typ</spanx> parameter is not used.
(This difference is
not related to the algorithm employed.) The
JWS Protected Header used is:
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
{"alg":"RS256"}
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
The octets representing UTF8(JWS Protected Header) in this example (using JSON array notation) are:
</t>
<t>
[123, 34, 97, 108, 103, 34, 58, 34, 82, 83, 50, 53, 54, 34, 125]
</t>
<t>
Encoding this JWS Protected Header as
BASE64URL(UTF8(JWS Protected Header)) gives this value:
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiJ9
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
The JWS Payload used in this example, which
follows, is the same as in the previous example. Since
the BASE64URL(JWS Payload) value will therefore be the same, its
computation is not repeated here.
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
{"iss":"joe",
"exp":1300819380,
"http://example.com/is_root":true}
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
Combining these as
BASE64URL(UTF8(JWS Protected Header)) || '.' || BASE64URL(JWS Payload)
gives this string
(with line breaks for display purposes only):
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiJ9
.
eyJpc3MiOiJqb2UiLA0KICJleHAiOjEzMDA4MTkzODAsDQogImh0dHA6Ly9leGFt
cGxlLmNvbS9pc19yb290Ijp0cnVlfQ
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
The resulting JWS Signing Input value,
which is the ASCII representation of above string,
is the following octet sequence:
</t>
<t>
[101, 121, 74, 104, 98, 71, 99, 105, 79, 105, 74, 83, 85, 122, 73, 49, 78, 105, 74, 57, 46, 101, 121, 74, 112, 99, 51, 77, 105, 79, 105, 74, 113, 98, 50, 85, 105, 76, 65, 48, 75, 73, 67, 74, 108, 101, 72, 65, 105, 79, 106, 69, 122, 77, 68, 65, 52, 77, 84, 107, 122, 79, 68, 65, 115, 68, 81, 111, 103, 73, 109, 104, 48, 100, 72, 65, 54, 76, 121, 57, 108, 101, 71, 70, 116, 99, 71, 120, 108, 76, 109, 78, 118, 98, 83, 57, 112, 99, 49, 57, 121, 98, 50, 57, 48, 73, 106, 112, 48, 99, 110, 86, 108, 102, 81]
</t>
<t>
This example uses the RSA key
represented in JSON Web Key <xref target="JWK" /> format below
(with line breaks within values for display purposes only):
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
{"kty":"RSA",
"n":"ofgWCuLjybRlzo0tZWJjNiuSfb4p4fAkd_wWJcyQoTbji9k0l8W26mPddx
HmfHQp-Vaw-4qPCJrcS2mJPMEzP1Pt0Bm4d4QlL-yRT-SFd2lZS-pCgNMs
D1W_YpRPEwOWvG6b32690r2jZ47soMZo9wGzjb_7OMg0LOL-bSf63kpaSH
SXndS5z5rexMdbBYUsLA9e-KXBdQOS-UTo7WTBEMa2R2CapHg665xsmtdV
MTBQY4uDZlxvb3qCo5ZwKh9kG4LT6_I5IhlJH7aGhyxXFvUK-DWNmoudF8
NAco9_h9iaGNj8q2ethFkMLs91kzk2PAcDTW9gb54h4FRWyuXpoQ",
"e":"AQAB",
"d":"Eq5xpGnNCivDflJsRQBXHx1hdR1k6Ulwe2JZD50LpXyWPEAeP88vLNO97I
jlA7_GQ5sLKMgvfTeXZx9SE-7YwVol2NXOoAJe46sui395IW_GO-pWJ1O0
BkTGoVEn2bKVRUCgu-GjBVaYLU6f3l9kJfFNS3E0QbVdxzubSu3Mkqzjkn
439X0M_V51gfpRLI9JYanrC4D4qAdGcopV_0ZHHzQlBjudU2QvXt4ehNYT
CBr6XCLQUShb1juUO1ZdiYoFaFQT5Tw8bGUl_x_jTj3ccPDVZFD9pIuhLh
BOneufuBiB4cS98l2SR_RQyGWSeWjnczT0QU91p1DhOVRuOopznQ"
}
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
The RSA private key is then passed to the RSA
signing function, which also takes the hash type, SHA-256,
and the JWS Signing Input
as inputs. The result of the digital signature is an octet sequence,
which represents a big endian integer. In this example, it
is:
</t>
<t>
[112, 46, 33, 137, 67, 232, 143, 209, 30, 181, 216, 45, 191, 120, 69, 243, 65, 6, 174, 27, 129, 255, 247, 115, 17, 22, 173, 209, 113, 125, 131, 101, 109, 66, 10, 253, 60, 150, 238, 221, 115, 162, 102, 62, 81, 102, 104, 123, 0, 11, 135, 34, 110, 1, 135, 237, 16, 115, 249, 69, 229, 130, 173, 252, 239, 22, 216, 90, 121, 142, 232, 198, 109, 219, 61, 184, 151, 91, 23, 208, 148, 2, 190, 237, 213, 217, 217, 112, 7, 16, 141, 178, 129, 96, 213, 248, 4, 12, 167, 68, 87, 98, 184, 31, 190, 127, 249, 217, 46, 10, 231, 111, 36, 242, 91, 51, 187, 230, 244, 74, 230, 30, 177, 4, 10, 203, 32, 4, 77, 62, 249, 18, 142, 212, 1, 48, 121, 91, 212, 189, 59, 65, 238, 202, 208, 102, 171, 101, 25, 129, 253, 228, 141, 247, 127, 55, 45, 195, 139, 159, 175, 221, 59, 239, 177, 139, 93, 163, 204, 60, 46, 176, 47, 158, 58, 65, 214, 18, 202, 173, 21, 145, 18, 115, 160, 95, 35, 185, 232, 56, 250, 175, 132, 157, 105, 132, 41, 239, 90, 30, 136, 121, 130, 54, 195, 212, 14, 96, 69, 34, 165, 68, 200, 242, 122, 122, 45, 184, 6, 99, 209, 108, 247, 202, 234, 86, 222, 64, 92, 178, 33, 90, 69, 178, 194, 85, 102, 181, 90, 193, 167, 72, 160, 112, 223, 200, 163, 42, 70, 149, 67, 208, 25, 238, 251, 71]
</t>
<t>
Encoding the signature as
BASE64URL(JWS Signature) produces this value
(with line breaks for display purposes only):
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
cC4hiUPoj9Eetdgtv3hF80EGrhuB__dzERat0XF9g2VtQgr9PJbu3XOiZj5RZmh7
AAuHIm4Bh-0Qc_lF5YKt_O8W2Fp5jujGbds9uJdbF9CUAr7t1dnZcAcQjbKBYNX4
BAynRFdiuB--f_nZLgrnbyTyWzO75vRK5h6xBArLIARNPvkSjtQBMHlb1L07Qe7K
0GarZRmB_eSN9383LcOLn6_dO--xi12jzDwusC-eOkHWEsqtFZESc6BfI7noOPqv
hJ1phCnvWh6IeYI2w9QOYEUipUTI8np6LbgGY9Fs98rqVt5AXLIhWkWywlVmtVrB
p0igcN_IoypGlUPQGe77Rw
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
Concatenating these values in the order
Header.Payload.Signature with period ('.') characters between the
parts yields this complete JWS representation
using the JWS Compact Serialization
(with line breaks for display purposes only):
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiJ9
.
eyJpc3MiOiJqb2UiLA0KICJleHAiOjEzMDA4MTkzODAsDQogImh0dHA6Ly9leGFt
cGxlLmNvbS9pc19yb290Ijp0cnVlfQ
.
cC4hiUPoj9Eetdgtv3hF80EGrhuB__dzERat0XF9g2VtQgr9PJbu3XOiZj5RZmh7
AAuHIm4Bh-0Qc_lF5YKt_O8W2Fp5jujGbds9uJdbF9CUAr7t1dnZcAcQjbKBYNX4
BAynRFdiuB--f_nZLgrnbyTyWzO75vRK5h6xBArLIARNPvkSjtQBMHlb1L07Qe7K
0GarZRmB_eSN9383LcOLn6_dO--xi12jzDwusC-eOkHWEsqtFZESc6BfI7noOPqv
hJ1phCnvWh6IeYI2w9QOYEUipUTI8np6LbgGY9Fs98rqVt5AXLIhWkWywlVmtVrB
p0igcN_IoypGlUPQGe77Rw
]]></artwork></figure>
</section>
<section title="Validating" anchor="RS256Validating">
<t>
Since the <spanx style="verb">alg</spanx> Header Parameter
is <spanx style="verb">RS256</spanx>, we
validate the RSASSA-PKCS-v1_5 SHA-256 digital signature contained in the JWS Signature.
</t>
<t>
Validating the JWS Signature is a bit different
from the previous example.
We pass the public key (n, e),
the JWS Signature
(which is base64url decoded from the value encoded in the JWS representation), and
the JWS Signing Input
(which is the initial substring of the JWS Compact Serialization
representation up until but not including the second period character)
to an RSASSA-PKCS-v1_5 signature verifier that has
been configured to use the SHA-256 hash function.
</t>
</section>
</section>
<section title="Example JWS using ECDSA P-256 SHA-256" anchor="ES256Example">
<section title="Encoding" anchor="ES256Encoding">
<t>
The JWS Protected Header for this example differs from
the previous example because a different algorithm is
being used. The JWS Protected Header used is:
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
{"alg":"ES256"}
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
The octets representing UTF8(JWS Protected Header) in this example (using JSON array notation) are:
</t>
<t>
[123, 34, 97, 108, 103, 34, 58, 34, 69, 83, 50, 53, 54, 34, 125]
</t>
<t>
Encoding this JWS Protected Header as
BASE64URL(UTF8(JWS Protected Header)) gives this value:
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
eyJhbGciOiJFUzI1NiJ9
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
The JWS Payload used in this example, which
follows, is the same as in the previous examples. Since
the BASE64URL(JWS Payload) value will therefore be the same, its
computation is not repeated here.
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
{"iss":"joe",
"exp":1300819380,
"http://example.com/is_root":true}
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
Combining these as
BASE64URL(UTF8(JWS Protected Header)) || '.' || BASE64URL(JWS Payload)
gives this string
(with line breaks for display purposes only):
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
eyJhbGciOiJFUzI1NiJ9
.
eyJpc3MiOiJqb2UiLA0KICJleHAiOjEzMDA4MTkzODAsDQogImh0dHA6Ly9leGFt
cGxlLmNvbS9pc19yb290Ijp0cnVlfQ
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
The resulting JWS Signing Input value,
which is the ASCII representation of above string,
is the following octet sequence:
</t>
<t>
[101, 121, 74, 104, 98, 71, 99, 105, 79, 105, 74, 70, 85, 122, 73, 49, 78, 105, 74, 57, 46, 101, 121, 74, 112, 99, 51, 77, 105, 79, 105, 74, 113, 98, 50, 85, 105, 76, 65, 48, 75, 73, 67, 74, 108, 101, 72, 65, 105, 79, 106, 69, 122, 77, 68, 65, 52, 77, 84, 107, 122, 79, 68, 65, 115, 68, 81, 111, 103, 73, 109, 104, 48, 100, 72, 65, 54, 76, 121, 57, 108, 101, 71, 70, 116, 99, 71, 120, 108, 76, 109, 78, 118, 98, 83, 57, 112, 99, 49, 57, 121, 98, 50, 57, 48, 73, 106, 112, 48, 99, 110, 86, 108, 102, 81]
</t>
<t>
This example uses the elliptic curve key
represented in JSON Web Key <xref target="JWK" /> format below:
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
{"kty":"EC",
"crv":"P-256",
"x":"f83OJ3D2xF1Bg8vub9tLe1gHMzV76e8Tus9uPHvRVEU",
"y":"x_FEzRu9m36HLN_tue659LNpXW6pCyStikYjKIWI5a0",
"d":"jpsQnnGQmL-YBIffH1136cspYG6-0iY7X1fCE9-E9LI"
}
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
The ECDSA private part d is then passed to an ECDSA
signing function, which also takes the curve type, P-256,
the hash type, SHA-256, and
the JWS Signing Input
as inputs. The result of the
digital signature is the EC point (R, S), where R and S are
unsigned integers. In this example, the R and S values,
given as octet sequences representing big endian integers are:
</t>
<texttable>
<ttcol align="left">Result Name</ttcol>
<ttcol align="left">Value</ttcol>
<c>R</c>
<c>
[14, 209, 33, 83, 121, 99, 108, 72, 60, 47, 127, 21, 88, 7, 212, 2, 163, 178, 40, 3, 58, 249, 124, 126, 23, 129, 154, 195, 22, 158, 166, 101]
</c>
<c>S</c>
<c>
[197, 10, 7, 211, 140, 60, 112, 229, 216, 241, 45, 175, 8, 74, 84, 128, 166, 101, 144, 197, 242, 147, 80, 154, 143, 63, 127, 138, 131, 163, 84, 213]
</c>
</texttable>
<t>
The JWS Signature is the value R || S.
Encoding the signature as
BASE64URL(JWS Signature) produces this value
(with line breaks for display purposes only):
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
DtEhU3ljbEg8L38VWAfUAqOyKAM6-Xx-F4GawxaepmXFCgfTjDxw5djxLa8ISlSA
pmWQxfKTUJqPP3-Kg6NU1Q
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
Concatenating these values in the order
Header.Payload.Signature with period ('.') characters between the
parts yields this complete JWS representation
using the JWS Compact Serialization
(with line breaks for display purposes only):
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
eyJhbGciOiJFUzI1NiJ9
.
eyJpc3MiOiJqb2UiLA0KICJleHAiOjEzMDA4MTkzODAsDQogImh0dHA6Ly9leGFt
cGxlLmNvbS9pc19yb290Ijp0cnVlfQ
.
DtEhU3ljbEg8L38VWAfUAqOyKAM6-Xx-F4GawxaepmXFCgfTjDxw5djxLa8ISlSA
pmWQxfKTUJqPP3-Kg6NU1Q
]]></artwork></figure>
</section>
<section title="Validating" anchor="ES256Validating">
<t>
Since the <spanx style="verb">alg</spanx> Header Parameter
is <spanx style="verb">ES256</spanx>, we
validate the ECDSA P-256 SHA-256 digital signature contained in
the JWS Signature.
</t>
<t>
Validating the JWS Signature is a bit different
from the previous examples.
We need to split the 64 member octet sequence of the JWS Signature
(which is base64url decoded from the value encoded in the JWS representation)
into two 32 octet sequences, the first representing R and the second S. We
then pass the public key (x, y), the signature (R, S), and
the JWS Signing Input
(which is the initial substring of the JWS Compact Serialization
representation up until but not including the second period character)
to an ECDSA signature verifier that
has been configured to use the P-256 curve with the
SHA-256 hash function.
</t>
</section>
</section>
<section title="Example JWS using ECDSA P-521 SHA-512" anchor="ES512Example">
<section title="Encoding" anchor="ES512Encoding">
<t>
The JWS Protected Header for this example differs from
the previous example because different ECDSA curves
and hash functions are used. The JWS Protected Header used is:
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
{"alg":"ES512"}
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
The octets representing UTF8(JWS Protected Header) in this example (using JSON array notation) are:
</t>
<t>
[123, 34, 97, 108, 103, 34, 58, 34, 69, 83, 53, 49, 50, 34, 125]
</t>
<t>
Encoding this JWS Protected Header as
BASE64URL(UTF8(JWS Protected Header)) gives this value:
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
eyJhbGciOiJFUzUxMiJ9
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
The JWS Payload used in this example, is the ASCII string "Payload".
The representation of this string is the octet sequence:
</t>
<t>
[80, 97, 121, 108, 111, 97, 100]
</t>
<t>
Encoding this JWS Payload as
BASE64URL(JWS Payload) gives this value:
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
UGF5bG9hZA
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
Combining these as
BASE64URL(UTF8(JWS Protected Header)) || '.' || BASE64URL(JWS Payload)
gives this string:
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
eyJhbGciOiJFUzUxMiJ9.UGF5bG9hZA
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
The resulting JWS Signing Input value,
which is the ASCII representation of above string,
is the following octet sequence:
</t>
<t>
[101, 121, 74, 104, 98, 71, 99, 105, 79, 105, 74, 70, 85, 122, 85, 120, 77, 105, 74, 57, 46, 85, 71, 70, 53, 98, 71, 57, 104, 90, 65]
</t>
<t>
This example uses the elliptic curve key
represented in JSON Web Key <xref target="JWK" /> format below
(with line breaks within values for display purposes only):
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
{"kty":"EC",
"crv":"P-521",
"x":"AekpBQ8ST8a8VcfVOTNl353vSrDCLLJXmPk06wTjxrrjcBpXp5EOnYG_
NjFZ6OvLFV1jSfS9tsz4qUxcWceqwQGk",
"y":"ADSmRA43Z1DSNx_RvcLI87cdL07l6jQyyBXMoxVg_l2Th-x3S1WDhjDl
y79ajL4Kkd0AZMaZmh9ubmf63e3kyMj2",
"d":"AY5pb7A0UFiB3RELSD64fTLOSV_jazdF7fLYyuTw8lOfRhWg6Y6rUrPA
xerEzgdRhajnu0ferB0d53vM9mE15j2C"
}
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
The ECDSA private part d is then passed to an ECDSA
signing function, which also takes the curve type, P-521,
the hash type, SHA-512, and
the JWS Signing Input
as inputs. The result of the
digital signature is the EC point (R, S), where R and S are
unsigned integers. In this example, the R and S values,
given as octet sequences representing big endian integers are:
</t>
<texttable>
<ttcol align="left">Result Name</ttcol>
<ttcol align="left">Value</ttcol>
<c>R</c>
<c>
[1, 220, 12, 129, 231, 171, 194, 209, 232, 135, 233, 117, 247, 105, 122, 210,
26, 125, 192, 1, 217, 21, 82, 91, 45, 240, 255, 83, 19, 34, 239, 71,
48, 157, 147, 152, 105, 18, 53, 108, 163, 214, 68, 231, 62, 153, 150, 106,
194, 164, 246, 72, 143, 138, 24, 50, 129, 223, 133, 206, 209, 172, 63, 237,
119, 109]
</c>
<c>S</c>
<c>
[0, 111, 6, 105, 44, 5, 41, 208, 128, 61, 152, 40, 92, 61,
152, 4, 150, 66, 60, 69, 247, 196, 170, 81, 193, 199, 78, 59, 194, 169,
16, 124, 9, 143, 42, 142, 131, 48, 206, 238, 34, 175, 83, 203, 220, 159,
3, 107, 155, 22, 27, 73, 111, 68, 68, 21, 238, 144, 229, 232, 148, 188,
222, 59, 242, 103]
</c>
</texttable>
<t>
The JWS Signature is the value R || S.
Encoding the signature as
BASE64URL(JWS Signature) produces this value
(with line breaks for display purposes only):
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
AdwMgeerwtHoh-l192l60hp9wAHZFVJbLfD_UxMi70cwnZOYaRI1bKPWROc-mZZq
wqT2SI-KGDKB34XO0aw_7XdtAG8GaSwFKdCAPZgoXD2YBJZCPEX3xKpRwcdOO8Kp
EHwJjyqOgzDO7iKvU8vcnwNrmxYbSW9ERBXukOXolLzeO_Jn
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
Concatenating these values in the order
Header.Payload.Signature with period ('.') characters between the
parts yields this complete JWS representation
using the JWS Compact Serialization
(with line breaks for display purposes only):
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
eyJhbGciOiJFUzUxMiJ9
.
UGF5bG9hZA
.
AdwMgeerwtHoh-l192l60hp9wAHZFVJbLfD_UxMi70cwnZOYaRI1bKPWROc-mZZq
wqT2SI-KGDKB34XO0aw_7XdtAG8GaSwFKdCAPZgoXD2YBJZCPEX3xKpRwcdOO8Kp
EHwJjyqOgzDO7iKvU8vcnwNrmxYbSW9ERBXukOXolLzeO_Jn
]]></artwork></figure>
</section>
<section title="Validating" anchor="ES512Validating">
<t>
Since the <spanx style="verb">alg</spanx> Header Parameter
is <spanx style="verb">ES512</spanx>, we
validate the ECDSA P-521 SHA-512 digital signature contained in
the JWS Signature.
</t>
<t>
Validating this JWS Signature is very similar to the previous example.
We need to split the 132 member octet sequence of the JWS Signature
into two 66 octet sequences, the first representing R and the second S. We
then pass the public key (x, y), the signature (R, S), and
the JWS Signing Input
to an ECDSA signature verifier that
has been configured to use the P-521 curve with the
SHA-512 hash function.
</t>
</section>
</section>
<section title="Example Unsecured JWS" anchor="ExampleUnsecuredJWS">
<t>
The following example JWS Protected Header declares that the
encoded object is an Unsecured JWS:
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
{"alg":"none"}
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
Encoding this JWS Protected Header as
BASE64URL(UTF8(JWS Protected Header)) gives this value:
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
eyJhbGciOiJub25lIn0
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
The JWS Payload used in this example, which
follows, is the same as in the previous examples. Since
the BASE64URL(JWS Payload) value will therefore be the same, its
computation is not repeated here.
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
{"iss":"joe",
"exp":1300819380,
"http://example.com/is_root":true}
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
The JWS Signature is the empty octet string
and BASE64URL(JWS Signature) is the empty string.
</t>
<t>
Concatenating these parts in the order
Header.Payload.Signature with period ('.') characters between the
parts yields this complete JWS (with line breaks for
display purposes only):
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
eyJhbGciOiJub25lIn0
.
eyJpc3MiOiJqb2UiLA0KICJleHAiOjEzMDA4MTkzODAsDQogImh0dHA6Ly9leGFt
cGxlLmNvbS9pc19yb290Ijp0cnVlfQ
.
]]></artwork></figure>
</section>
<section title="Example JWS Using JWS JSON Serialization" anchor="JSONSerializationExample">
<t>
This section contains an example using the JWS JSON Serialization.
This example demonstrates the capability for
conveying multiple digital signatures and/or MACs for the
same payload.
</t>
<t>
The JWS Payload used in this example is the same as
that used in the examples in <xref target="RS256Example"/>
and <xref target="ES256Example"/>
(with line breaks for display purposes only):
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
eyJpc3MiOiJqb2UiLA0KICJleHAiOjEzMDA4MTkzODAsDQogImh0dHA6Ly9leGFt
cGxlLmNvbS9pc19yb290Ijp0cnVlfQ
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
Two digital signatures are used in this example:
the first using RSASSA-PKCS-v1_5 SHA-256 and
the second using ECDSA P-256 SHA-256.
For the first, the JWS Protected Header and key
are the same as in <xref target="RS256Example"/>,
resulting in the same JWS Signature value;
therefore, its computation is not repeated here.
For the second, the JWS Protected Header and key
are the same as in <xref target="ES256Example"/>,
resulting in the same JWS Signature value;
therefore, its computation is not repeated here.
</t>
<section title="JWS Per-Signature Protected Headers" anchor="JSProtectedHeader">
<t>
The JWS Protected Header value used for the first signature is:
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
{"alg":"RS256"}
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
Encoding this JWS Protected Header as
BASE64URL(UTF8(JWS Protected Header)) gives this value:
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiJ9
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
The JWS Protected Header value used for the second signature is:
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
{"alg":"ES256"}
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
Encoding this JWS Protected Header as
BASE64URL(UTF8(JWS Protected Header)) gives this value:
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
eyJhbGciOiJFUzI1NiJ9
]]></artwork></figure>
</section>
<section title="JWS Per-Signature Unprotected Headers" anchor="JSRecipientHeaders">
<t>
Key ID values are supplied for both keys using per-signature
Header Parameters.
The two values used to represent these Key IDs are:
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
{"kid":"2010-12-29"}
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
and
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
{"kid":"e9bc097a-ce51-4036-9562-d2ade882db0d"}
]]></artwork></figure>
</section>
<section title="Complete JOSE Header Values" anchor="JSHeader">
<t>
Combining the protected and unprotected header values
supplied, the JOSE Header values used for the first and second
signatures respectively are:
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
{"alg":"RS256",
"kid":"2010-12-29"}
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
and
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
{"alg":"ES256",
"kid":"e9bc097a-ce51-4036-9562-d2ade882db0d"}
]]></artwork></figure>
</section>
<section title="Complete JWS JSON Serialization Representation" anchor="JSComplete">
<t>
The complete JSON Web Signature JSON Serialization
for these values is as follows
(with line breaks within values for display purposes only):
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
{"payload":
"eyJpc3MiOiJqb2UiLA0KICJleHAiOjEzMDA4MTkzODAsDQogImh0dHA6Ly9leGF
tcGxlLmNvbS9pc19yb290Ijp0cnVlfQ",
"signatures":[
{"protected":"eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiJ9",
"header":
{"kid":"2010-12-29"},
"signature":
"cC4hiUPoj9Eetdgtv3hF80EGrhuB__dzERat0XF9g2VtQgr9PJbu3XOiZj5RZ
mh7AAuHIm4Bh-0Qc_lF5YKt_O8W2Fp5jujGbds9uJdbF9CUAr7t1dnZcAcQjb
KBYNX4BAynRFdiuB--f_nZLgrnbyTyWzO75vRK5h6xBArLIARNPvkSjtQBMHl
b1L07Qe7K0GarZRmB_eSN9383LcOLn6_dO--xi12jzDwusC-eOkHWEsqtFZES
c6BfI7noOPqvhJ1phCnvWh6IeYI2w9QOYEUipUTI8np6LbgGY9Fs98rqVt5AX
LIhWkWywlVmtVrBp0igcN_IoypGlUPQGe77Rw"},
{"protected":"eyJhbGciOiJFUzI1NiJ9",
"header":
{"kid":"e9bc097a-ce51-4036-9562-d2ade882db0d"},
"signature":
"DtEhU3ljbEg8L38VWAfUAqOyKAM6-Xx-F4GawxaepmXFCgfTjDxw5djxLa8IS
lSApmWQxfKTUJqPP3-Kg6NU1Q"}]
}
]]></artwork></figure>
</section>
</section>
</section>
<section title='"x5c" (X.509 Certificate Chain) Example' anchor="x5cExample">
<t>
The JSON array below is an example of a certificate chain
that could be used as the value of an
<spanx style="verb">x5c</spanx> (X.509 Certificate Chain) Header Parameter,
per <xref target="x5cDef"/>.
Note that since these strings contain base64 encoded (not base64url encoded)
values, they are allowed to contain white space and line breaks.
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
["MIIE3jCCA8agAwIBAgICAwEwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEFBQAwYzELMAkGA1UEBhMCVVM
xITAfBgNVBAoTGFRoZSBHbyBEYWRkeSBHcm91cCwgSW5jLjExMC8GA1UECxMoR2
8gRGFkZHkgQ2xhc3MgMiBDZXJ0aWZpY2F0aW9uIEF1dGhvcml0eTAeFw0wNjExM
TYwMTU0MzdaFw0yNjExMTYwMTU0MzdaMIHKMQswCQYDVQQGEwJVUzEQMA4GA1UE
CBMHQXJpem9uYTETMBEGA1UEBxMKU2NvdHRzZGFsZTEaMBgGA1UEChMRR29EYWR
keS5jb20sIEluYy4xMzAxBgNVBAsTKmh0dHA6Ly9jZXJ0aWZpY2F0ZXMuZ29kYW
RkeS5jb20vcmVwb3NpdG9yeTEwMC4GA1UEAxMnR28gRGFkZHkgU2VjdXJlIENlc
nRpZmljYXRpb24gQXV0aG9yaXR5MREwDwYDVQQFEwgwNzk2OTI4NzCCASIwDQYJ
KoZIhvcNAQEBBQADggEPADCCAQoCggEBAMQt1RWMnCZM7DI161+4WQFapmGBWTt
wY6vj3D3HKrjJM9N55DrtPDAjhI6zMBS2sofDPZVUBJ7fmd0LJR4h3mUpfjWoqV
Tr9vcyOdQmVZWt7/v+WIbXnvQAjYwqDL1CBM6nPwT27oDyqu9SoWlm2r4arV3aL
GbqGmu75RpRSgAvSMeYddi5Kcju+GZtCpyz8/x4fKL4o/K1w/O5epHBp+YlLpyo
7RJlbmr2EkRTcDCVw5wrWCs9CHRK8r5RsL+H0EwnWGu1NcWdrxcx+AuP7q2BNgW
JCJjPOq8lh8BJ6qf9Z/dFjpfMFDniNoW1fho3/Rb2cRGadDAW/hOUoz+EDU8CAw
EAAaOCATIwggEuMB0GA1UdDgQWBBT9rGEyk2xF1uLuhV+auud2mWjM5zAfBgNVH
SMEGDAWgBTSxLDSkdRMEXGzYcs9of7dqGrU4zASBgNVHRMBAf8ECDAGAQH/AgEA
MDMGCCsGAQUFBwEBBCcwJTAjBggrBgEFBQcwAYYXaHR0cDovL29jc3AuZ29kYWR
keS5jb20wRgYDVR0fBD8wPTA7oDmgN4Y1aHR0cDovL2NlcnRpZmljYXRlcy5nb2
RhZGR5LmNvbS9yZXBvc2l0b3J5L2dkcm9vdC5jcmwwSwYDVR0gBEQwQjBABgRVH
SAAMDgwNgYIKwYBBQUHAgEWKmh0dHA6Ly9jZXJ0aWZpY2F0ZXMuZ29kYWRkeS5j
b20vcmVwb3NpdG9yeTAOBgNVHQ8BAf8EBAMCAQYwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEFBQADggE
BANKGwOy9+aG2Z+5mC6IGOgRQjhVyrEp0lVPLN8tESe8HkGsz2ZbwlFalEzAFPI
UyIXvJxwqoJKSQ3kbTJSMUA2fCENZvD117esyfxVgqwcSeIaha86ykRvOe5GPLL
5CkKSkB2XIsKd83ASe8T+5o0yGPwLPk9Qnt0hCqU7S+8MxZC9Y7lhyVJEnfzuz9
p0iRFEUOOjZv2kWzRaJBydTXRE4+uXR21aITVSzGh6O1mawGhId/dQb8vxRMDsx
uxN89txJx9OjxUUAiKEngHUuHqDTMBqLdElrRhjZkAzVvb3du6/KFUJheqwNTrZ
EjYx8WnM25sgVjOuH0aBsXBTWVU+4=",
"MIIE+zCCBGSgAwIBAgICAQ0wDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEFBQAwgbsxJDAiBgNVBAcTG1Z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",
"MIIC5zCCAlACAQEwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEFBQAwgbsxJDAiBgNVBAcTG1ZhbGlDZXJ
0IFZhbGlkYXRpb24gTmV0d29yazEXMBUGA1UEChMOVmFsaUNlcnQsIEluYy4xNT
AzBgNVBAsTLFZhbGlDZXJ0IENsYXNzIDIgUG9saWN5IFZhbGlkYXRpb24gQXV0a
G9yaXR5MSEwHwYDVQQDExhodHRwOi8vd3d3LnZhbGljZXJ0LmNvbS8xIDAeBgkq
hkiG9w0BCQEWEWluZm9AdmFsaWNlcnQuY29tMB4XDTk5MDYyNjAwMTk1NFoXDTE
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V0d29yazEXMBUGA1UEChMOVmFsaUNlcnQsIEluYy4xNTAzBgNVBAsTLFZhbGlDZ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"]
]]></artwork></figure>
</section>
<section title="Notes on implementing base64url encoding without padding" anchor="base64urlnotes">
<t>
This appendix describes how to implement base64url encoding
and decoding functions without padding based upon standard
base64 encoding and decoding functions that do use padding.
</t>
<t>
To be concrete, example C# code implementing these functions
is shown below. Similar code could be used in other
languages.
</t>
<figure><artwork><![CDATA[
static string base64urlencode(byte [] arg)
{
string s = Convert.ToBase64String(arg); // Regular base64 encoder
s = s.Split('=')[0]; // Remove any trailing '='s
s = s.Replace('+', '-'); // 62nd char of encoding
s = s.Replace('/', '_'); // 63rd char of encoding
return s;
}
static byte [] base64urldecode(string arg)
{
string s = arg;
s = s.Replace('-', '+'); // 62nd char of encoding
s = s.Replace('_', '/'); // 63rd char of encoding
switch (s.Length % 4) // Pad with trailing '='s
{
case 0: break; // No pad chars in this case
case 2: s += "=="; break; // Two pad chars
case 3: s += "="; break; // One pad char
default: throw new System.Exception(
"Illegal base64url string!");
}
return Convert.FromBase64String(s); // Standard base64 decoder
}
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
As per the example code above, the number of '=' padding
characters that needs to be added to the end of a base64url
encoded string without padding to turn it into one with
padding is a deterministic function of the length of the
encoded string. Specifically,
if the length mod 4 is 0, no padding is added;
if the length mod 4 is 2, two '=' padding characters are added;
if the length mod 4 is 3, one '=' padding character is added;
if the length mod 4 is 1, the input is malformed.
</t>
<t>
An example correspondence between unencoded and encoded values
follows. The octet sequence below encodes into the string
below, which when decoded, reproduces the octet sequence.
</t>
<figure><artwork>3 236 255 224 193</artwork></figure>
<figure><artwork>A-z_4ME</artwork></figure>
</section>
<section title="Notes on Key Selection" anchor="KeySelectionNotes">
<t>
This appendix describes a set of possible algorithms for selecting the key
to be used to validate the digital signature or MAC of a JWS object
or for selecting the key to be used to decrypt a JWE object.
This guidance describes a family of possible algorithms,
rather than a single algorithm,
because in different contexts, not all the sources of keys will be used,
they can be tried in different orders,
and sometimes not all the collected keys will be tried;
hence, different algorithms will be used in different application contexts.
</t>
<t>
The steps below are described for illustration purposes only;
specific applications can and are likely to use different algorithms
or perform some of the steps in different orders.
Specific applications will frequently have a much simpler method
of determining the keys to use, as there may be one or two key selection
methods that are profiled for the application's use.
This appendix supplements the normative information on key location
in <xref target="IDingKeys"/>.
</t>
<t>
These algorithms include the following steps.
Note that the steps can be performed in any order
and do not need to be treated as distinct.
For example, keys can be tried as soon as they are found,
rather than collecting all the keys before trying any.
<list style="numbers">
<t>
Collect the set of potentially applicable keys.
Sources of keys may include:
<list style="symbols">
<t>
Keys supplied by the application protocol being used.
</t>
<t>
Keys referenced by the <spanx style="verb">jku</spanx> (JWK Set URL)
Header Parameter.
</t>
<t>
The key provided by the <spanx style="verb">jwk</spanx> (JSON Web Key)
Header Parameter.
</t>
<t>
The key referenced by the <spanx style="verb">x5u</spanx> (X.509 URL)
Header Parameter.
</t>
<t>
The key provided by the
<spanx style="verb">x5c</spanx> (X.509 Certificate Chain)
Header Parameter.
</t>
<t>
Other applicable keys available to the application.
</t>
</list>
The order for collecting and trying keys from different key sources
is typically application dependent.
For example, frequently all keys from a one set of locations,
such as local caches,
will be tried before collecting and trying keys from other locations.
</t>
<t>
Filter the set of collected keys.
For instance, some applications will use only keys referenced by
<spanx style="verb">kid</spanx> (key ID) or
<spanx style="verb">x5t</spanx> (X.509 certificate SHA-1 thumbprint)
parameters.
If the application uses the
<spanx style="verb">alg</spanx> (algorithm),
<spanx style="verb">use</spanx> (public key use), or
<spanx style="verb">key_ops</spanx> (key operations) parameters,
keys with keys with inappropriate values of those parameters
would be excluded.
Additionally, keys might be filtered to include or exclude keys
with certain other member values in an application specific manner.
For some applications, no filtering will be applied.
</t>
<t>
Order the set of collected keys.
For instance, keys referenced by
<spanx style="verb">kid</spanx> (Key ID) or
<spanx style="verb">x5t</spanx> (X.509 Certificate SHA-1 Thumbprint)
parameters might be tried before keys with neither of these values.
Likewise, keys with certain member values
might be ordered before keys with other member values.
For some applications, no ordering will be applied.
</t>
<t>
Make trust decisions about the keys.
Signatures made with
keys not meeting the application's trust criteria would not be accepted.
Such criteria might include, but is not limited to
the source of the key,
whether the TLS certificate validates for keys retrieved from URLs,
whether a key in an X.509 certificate is backed by a valid certificate chain,
and other information known by the application.
</t>
<t>
Attempt signature or MAC validation for a JWS object
or decryption of a JWE object with
some or all of the collected and possibly filtered and/or ordered keys.
A limit on the number of keys to be tried might be applied.
This process will normally terminate following a successful validation
or decryption.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
Note that it is reasonable for some applications to perform
signature or MAC validation prior to making a trust decision about a key,
since keys for which the validation fails need no trust decision.
</t>
</section>
<section title='Negative Test Case for "crit" Header Parameter' anchor="critTest">
<t>
Conforming implementations must reject input containing critical extensions
that are not understood or cannot be processed. The following JWS must
be rejected by all implementations, because it uses an extension
Header Parameter name <spanx style="verb">http://example.invalid/UNDEFINED</spanx>
that they do not understand.
Any other similar input, in which the use of the value
<spanx style="verb">http://example.invalid/UNDEFINED</spanx> is substituted for
any other Header Parameter name not understood by the implementation,
must also be rejected.
<figure>
<preamble>
The JWS Protected Header value for this JWS is:
</preamble>
<artwork><![CDATA[
{"alg":"none",
"crit":["http://example.invalid/UNDEFINED"],
"http://example.invalid/UNDEFINED":true
}
]]></artwork>
</figure>
<figure>
<preamble>
The complete JWS that must be rejected is as follows
(with line breaks for display purposes only):
</preamble>
<artwork><![CDATA[
eyJhbGciOiJub25lIiwNCiAiY3JpdCI6WyJodHRwOi8vZXhhbXBsZS5jb20vVU5ERU
ZJTkVEIl0sDQogImh0dHA6Ly9leGFtcGxlLmNvbS9VTkRFRklORUQiOnRydWUNCn0.
RkFJTA.
]]></artwork>
</figure>
</t>
</section>
<section anchor="DetachedContent" title="Detached Content">
<t>
In some contexts, it is useful integrity protect content that
is not itself contained in a JWS object.
One way to do this is create a JWS object in the normal fashion using
a representation of the content as the payload,
but then delete the payload representation from the JWS,
and send this modified object to the recipient, rather than the JWS.
When using the JWS Compact Serialization, the deletion is accomplished
by replacing the second field (which contains BASE64URL(JWS Payload)) value
with the empty string;
when using the JWS JSON Serialization, the deletion is accomplished
by deleting the <spanx style="verb">payload</spanx> member.
This method assumes that the recipient can reconstruct
the exact payload used in the JWS.
To use the modified object, the recipient reconstructs the JWS
by re-inserting the payload representation into the modified object,
and uses the resulting JWS in the usual manner.
Note that this method needs no support from JWS libraries, as applications
can use this method by modifying the inputs and outputs of standard JWS libraries.
</t>
</section>
<section title="Acknowledgements" anchor="Acknowledgements">
<t>
Solutions for signing JSON content were previously explored by
<xref target="MagicSignatures">Magic Signatures</xref>, <xref
target="JSS">JSON Simple Sign</xref>, and <xref
target="CanvasApp">Canvas Applications</xref>, all of which
influenced this draft.
</t>
<t>
Thanks to Axel Nennker for his early implementation
and feedback on the JWS and JWE specifications.
</t>
<t>
This specification is the work of the JOSE Working Group,
which includes dozens of active and dedicated participants.
In particular, the following individuals contributed ideas,
feedback, and wording that influenced this specification:
</t>
<t>
Dirk Balfanz,
Richard Barnes,
Brian Campbell,
Alissa Cooper,
Breno de Medeiros,
Stephen Farrell,
Dick Hardt,
Joe Hildebrand,
Jeff Hodges,
Russ Housley,
Edmund Jay,
Tero Kivinen,
Yaron Y. Goland,
Ben Laurie,
Ted Lemon,
James Manger,
Matt Miller,
Kathleen Moriarty,
Tony Nadalin,
Hideki Nara,
Axel Nennker,
John Panzer,
Ray Polk,
Emmanuel Raviart,
Eric Rescorla,
Pete Resnick,
Jim Schaad,
Paul Tarjan,
Hannes Tschofenig,
and Sean Turner.
</t>
<t>
Jim Schaad and Karen O'Donoghue chaired the JOSE working group and
Sean Turner, Stephen Farrell, and Kathleen Moriarty served as Security area directors
during the creation of this specification.
</t>
</section>
<section title="Document History" anchor="History">
<t>
[[ to be removed by the RFC Editor before publication as an RFC ]]
</t>
<t>
-35
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Addressed AppsDir reviews by Ray Polk.
</t>
<t>
Used real values for examples in the IANA Registration Template.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-34
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Addressed IESG review comments by Alissa Cooper, Pete Resnick, Richard Barnes,
Ted Lemon, and Stephen Farrell.
</t>
<t>
Addressed Gen-ART review comments by Russ Housley.
</t>
<t>
Referenced RFC 4945 for PEM certificate delimiter syntax.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-33
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Noted that certificate thumbprints are also sometimes known as certificate fingerprints.
</t>
<t>
Added an informative reference to draft-ietf-uta-tls-bcp
for recommendations on improving the security of software and services using TLS.
</t>
<t>
Changed the registration review period to three weeks.
</t>
<t>
Acknowledged additional contributors.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-32
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Addressed Gen-ART review comments by Russ Housley.
</t>
<t>
Addressed secdir review comments by Tero Kivinen, Stephen Kent, and Scott Kelly.
</t>
<t>
Replaced the term Plaintext JWS with Unsecured JWS.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-31
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Reworded the language about JWS implementations ignoring the
<spanx style="verb">typ</spanx> and <spanx style="verb">cty</spanx> parameters,
explicitly saying that their processing is performed by JWS applications.
</t>
<t>
Added additional guidance on ciphersuites currently considered
to be appropriate for use, including a reference to a recent update
by the TLS working group.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-30
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Added subsection headings within the Overview section for the two serializations.
</t>
<t>
Added references and cleaned up the reference syntax in a few places.
</t>
<t>
Applied minor wording changes to the Security Considerations section
and made other local editorial improvements.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-29
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Replaced the terms JWS Header, JWE Header, and JWT Header
with a single JOSE Header term defined in the JWS specification.
This also enabled a single Header Parameter definition to be used
and reduced other areas of duplication between specifications.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-28
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Revised the introduction to the Security Considerations section.
Also introduced additional subsection headings for security considerations items and
also moved a security consideration item here from the JWA draft.
</t>
<t>
Added text about when applications typically would and would not use
<spanx style="verb">typ</spanx> and <spanx style="verb">cty</spanx>
header parameters.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-27
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Added the <spanx style="verb">x5t#S256</spanx>
(X.509 Certificate SHA-256 Thumbprint) header parameter.
</t>
<t>
Stated that any JSON inputs not conforming to the JSON-text syntax
defined in RFC 7159 input MUST be rejected in their entirety.
</t>
<t>
Simplified the TLS requirements.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-26
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Referenced Section 6 of RFC 6125 for TLS server certificate identity validation.
</t>
<t>
Described potential sources of ambiguity in representing
the JSON objects used in the examples.
The octets of the actual UTF-8 representations of the JSON objects
used in the examples are included to remove these ambiguities.
</t>
<t>
Added a small amount of additional explanatory text
to the signature validation examples to aid implementers.
</t>
<t>
Noted that octet sequences are depicted using JSON array notation.
</t>
<t>
Updated references, including to W3C specifications.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-25
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
No changes were made, other than to the version number and date.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-24
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Updated the JSON reference to RFC 7159.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-23
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Clarified that the base64url encoding includes no
line breaks, white space, or other additional characters.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-22
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Corrected RFC 2119 terminology usage.
</t>
<t>
Replaced references to draft-ietf-json-rfc4627bis with RFC 7158.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-21
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Applied review comments to the appendix "Notes on Key Selection",
addressing issue #93.
</t>
<t>
Changed some references from being normative to informative,
addressing issue #90.
</t>
<t>
Applied review comments to the JSON Serialization section,
addressing issue #121.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-20
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Made terminology definitions more consistent,
addressing issue #165.
</t>
<t>
Restructured the JSON Serialization section to call out
the parameters used in hanging lists,
addressing issue #121.
</t>
<t>
Described key filtering and refined other aspects of
the text in the appendix "Notes on Key Selection",
addressing issue #93.
</t>
<t>
Replaced references to RFC 4627 with draft-ietf-json-rfc4627bis,
addressing issue #90.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-19
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Added the appendix "Notes on Validation Key Selection",
addressing issue #93.
</t>
<t>
Reordered the key selection parameters.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-18
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Updated the mandatory-to-implement (MTI) language to say that
applications using this specification need to specify what serialization
and serialization features are used for that application,
addressing issue #119.
</t>
<t>
Changes to address editorial and minor issues
#25, #89, #97, #110, #114, #115, #116, #117, #120, and #184.
</t>
<t>
Added and used Header Parameter Description registry field.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-17
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Refined the <spanx style="verb">typ</spanx> and
<spanx style="verb">cty</spanx> definitions to always be
MIME Media Types, with the omission of "application/"
prefixes recommended for brevity,
addressing issue #50.
</t>
<t>
Updated the mandatory-to-implement (MTI) language to say
that general-purpose implementations must implement the
single signature/MAC value case for both serializations
whereas special-purpose implementations can implement
just one serialization if that meets the needs of
the use cases the implementation is designed for,
addressing issue #119.
</t>
<t>
Explicitly named all the logical components of a JWS
and defined the processing rules and serializations
in terms of those components,
addressing issues #60, #61, and #62.
</t>
<t>
Replaced verbose repetitive phases such as
"base64url encode the octets of the UTF-8 representation of X"
with mathematical notation such as "BASE64URL(UTF8(X))".
</t>
<t>
Terms used in multiple documents are now defined in
one place and incorporated by reference.
Some lightly used or obvious terms were also removed.
This addresses issue #58.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-16
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Changes to address editorial and minor issues
#50, #98, #99, #102, #104, #106, #107, #111, and #112.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-15
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Clarified that it is an application decision which
signatures, MACs, or plaintext values
must successfully validate for the JWS to be accepted,
addressing issue #35.
</t>
<t>
Corrected editorial error in <spanx style="verb">ES512</spanx> example.
</t>
<t>
Changes to address editorial and minor issues
#34, #96, #100, #101, #104, #105, and #106.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-14
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Stated that the <spanx style="verb">signature</spanx> parameter
is to be omitted in the JWS JSON Serialization
when its value would be empty
(which is only the case for a Plaintext JWS).
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-13
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Made all header parameter values be per-signature/MAC,
addressing issue #24.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-12
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Clarified that the <spanx style="verb">typ</spanx> and
<spanx style="verb">cty</spanx> header parameters are used
in an application-specific manner
and have no effect upon the JWS processing.
</t>
<t>
Replaced the MIME types
<spanx style="verb">application/jws+json</spanx> and
<spanx style="verb">application/jws</spanx> with
<spanx style="verb">application/jose+json</spanx> and
<spanx style="verb">application/jose</spanx>.
</t>
<t>
Stated that recipients MUST either reject JWSs with
duplicate Header Parameter Names
or use a JSON parser that returns only
the lexically last duplicate member name.
</t>
<t>
Added a Serializations section with parallel treatment of the
JWS Compact Serialization
and the
JWS JSON Serialization
and also moved the former Implementation Considerations content there.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-11
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Added Key Identification section.
</t>
<t>
For the JWS JSON Serialization, enable header parameter values
to be specified in any of three parameters:
the <spanx style="verb">protected</spanx> member that is
integrity protected and shared among all recipients,
the <spanx style="verb">unprotected</spanx> member that is
not integrity protected and shared among all recipients,
and the <spanx style="verb">header</spanx> member that is
not integrity protected and specific to a particular recipient.
(This does not affect the JWS Compact Serialization, in which all
header parameter values are in a single integrity protected JWE Header value.)
</t>
<t>
Removed suggested compact serialization for multiple
digital signatures and/or MACs.
</t>
<t>
Changed the MIME type name <spanx style="verb">application/jws-js</spanx>
to <spanx style="verb">application/jws+json</spanx>,
addressing issue #22.
</t>
<t>
Tightened the description of the
<spanx style="verb">crit</spanx> (critical) header parameter.
</t>
<t>
Added a negative test case for the
<spanx style="verb">crit</spanx> header parameter
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-10
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Added an appendix suggesting a possible compact serialization
for JWSs with multiple digital signatures and/or MACs.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-09
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Added JWS JSON Serialization, as specified by
draft-jones-jose-jws-json-serialization-04.
</t>
<t>
Registered <spanx style="verb">application/jws-js</spanx> MIME type
and <spanx style="verb">JWS-JS</spanx> typ header parameter value.
</t>
<t>
Defined that the default action for header parameters that
are not understood is to ignore them unless specifically
designated as "MUST be understood" or included in the new
<spanx style="verb">crit</spanx> (critical) header parameter list.
This addressed issue #6.
</t>
<t>
Changed term "JWS Secured Input" to "JWS Signing Input".
</t>
<t>
Changed from using the term "byte" to "octet" when referring to 8 bit values.
</t>
<t>
Changed member name from <spanx style="verb">recipients</spanx> to
<spanx style="verb">signatures</spanx> in the JWS JSON Serialization.
</t>
<t>
Added complete values using the JWS Compact Serialization
for all examples.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-08
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Applied editorial improvements suggested by
Jeff Hodges and Hannes Tschofenig.
Many of these simplified the terminology used.
</t>
<t>
Clarified statements of the form "This header parameter is OPTIONAL"
to "Use of this header parameter is OPTIONAL".
</t>
<t>
Added a Header Parameter Usage Location(s) field to the
IANA JSON Web Signature and Encryption Header Parameters registry.
</t>
<t>
Added seriesInfo information to Internet Draft references.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-07
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Updated references.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-06
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Changed <spanx style="verb">x5c</spanx> (X.509 Certificate Chain)
representation from being a single string to being an array of strings,
each containing a single base64 encoded DER certificate value,
representing elements of the certificate chain.
</t>
<t>
Applied changes made by the RFC Editor to RFC 6749's registry language
to this specification.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-05
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Added statement that
"StringOrURI values are compared as case-sensitive strings
with no transformations or canonicalizations applied".
</t>
<t>
Indented artwork elements to better distinguish them from the body text.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-04
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Completed JSON Security Considerations section, including
considerations about rejecting input with duplicate member names.
</t>
<t>
Completed security considerations on the use of a SHA-1 hash when computing
<spanx style="verb">x5t</spanx> (x.509 certificate thumbprint) values.
</t>
<t>
Refer to the registries as the primary sources of defined
values and then secondarily reference the sections
defining the initial contents of the registries.
</t>
<t>
Normatively reference
XML DSIG 2.0
for its security considerations.
</t>
<t>
Added this language to Registration Templates:
"This name is case sensitive. Names that match other registered names
in a case insensitive manner SHOULD NOT be accepted."
</t>
<t>
Reference draft-jones-jose-jws-json-serialization
instead of draft-jones-json-web-signature-json-serialization.
</t>
<t>
Described additional open issues.
</t>
<t>
Applied editorial suggestions.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-03
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Added the <spanx style="verb">cty</spanx> (content type) header parameter
for declaring type information about the secured content,
as opposed to the <spanx style="verb">typ</spanx> (type) header parameter,
which declares type information about this object.
</t>
<t>
Added "Collision Resistant Namespace" to the terminology section.
</t>
<t>
Reference ITU.X690.1994 for DER encoding.
</t>
<t>
Added an example JWS using ECDSA P-521 SHA-512. This has particular
illustrative value because of the use of the 521 bit integers
in the key and signature values.
This is also an example in which the payload is not a base64url
encoded JSON object.
</t>
<t>
Added an example <spanx style="verb">x5c</spanx> value.
</t>
<t>
No longer say "the UTF-8 representation of the JWS Secured Input
(which is the same as the ASCII representation)". Just call it
"the ASCII representation of the JWS Secured Input".
</t>
<t>
Added Registration Template sections for defined registries.
</t>
<t>
Added Registry Contents sections to populate registry values.
</t>
<t>
Changed name of the JSON Web Signature and Encryption "typ" Values registry
to be the JSON Web Signature and Encryption Type Values registry, since
it is used for more than just values of the
<spanx style="verb">typ</spanx> parameter.
</t>
<t>
Moved registries
JSON Web Signature and Encryption Header Parameters and
JSON Web Signature and Encryption Type Values
to the JWS specification.
</t>
<t>
Numerous editorial improvements.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-02
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Clarified that it is an error when a <spanx style="verb">kid</spanx>
value is included and no matching key is found.
</t>
<t>
Removed assumption that <spanx style="verb">kid</spanx> (key ID)
can only refer to an asymmetric key.
</t>
<t>
Clarified that JWSs with duplicate Header Parameter Names
MUST be rejected.
</t>
<t>
Clarified the relationship between
<spanx style="verb">typ</spanx> header parameter values
and MIME types.
</t>
<t>
Registered application/jws MIME type and "JWS" typ header parameter value.
</t>
<t>
Simplified JWK terminology to get replace the "JWK Key Object" and
"JWK Container Object" terms with simply "JSON Web Key (JWK)"
and "JSON Web Key Set (JWK Set)" and to eliminate potential
confusion between single keys and sets of keys.
As part of this change, the Header Parameter Name for a
public key value was changed from
<spanx style="verb">jpk</spanx> (JSON Public Key) to
<spanx style="verb">jwk</spanx> (JSON Web Key).
</t>
<t>
Added suggestion on defining additional header parameters
such as <spanx style="verb">x5t#S256</spanx> in the future
for certificate thumbprints using hash algorithms other
than SHA-1.
</t>
<t>
Specify RFC 2818 server identity validation, rather than
RFC 6125 (paralleling the same decision in the OAuth specs).
</t>
<t>
Generalized language to refer to Message Authentication Codes (MACs)
rather than Hash-based Message Authentication Codes (HMACs)
unless in a context specific to HMAC algorithms.
</t>
<t>
Reformatted to give each header parameter its own section heading.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-01
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Moved definition of Plaintext JWSs (using "alg":"none")
here from the JWT specification since this functionality is
likely to be useful in more contexts that just for JWTs.
</t>
<t>
Added <spanx style="verb">jpk</spanx> and <spanx
style="verb">x5c</spanx> header parameters for including
JWK public keys and X.509 certificate chains directly in
the header.
</t>
<t>
Clarified that this specification is defining the JWS
Compact Serialization. Referenced the new JWS-JS spec,
which defines the JWS JSON Serialization.
</t>
<t>
Added text "New header parameters should be introduced
sparingly since an implementation that does not understand
a parameter MUST reject the JWS".
</t>
<t>
Clarified that the order of the creation and validation
steps is not significant in cases where there are no
dependencies between the inputs and outputs of the steps.
</t>
<t>
Changed "no canonicalization is performed" to "no
canonicalization need be performed".
</t>
<t>
Corrected the Magic Signatures reference.
</t>
<t>
Made other editorial improvements suggested by JOSE
working group participants.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
-00
<list style='symbols'>
<t>
Created the initial IETF draft based upon
draft-jones-json-web-signature-04 with no normative
changes.
</t>
<t>
Changed terminology to no longer call both digital
signatures and HMACs "signatures".
</t>
</list>
</t>
</section>
</back>
</rfc>
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