Method and apparatus for retrieving X.509 certificates from an X.500 directory
DCFirst Claim
1. A method of retrieving an authentication certificate from a directory accessible by a directory service agent in a directory user agent, comprising the steps of:
- transmitting an open connection message comprising a search criteria message including certificate attributes to establish communication between the directory user agent and the directory service agent;
searching the directory for authentication certificates responsive to the search criteria message;
fetching the authentication certificates; and
transmitting the fetched authentication certificates to the directory user agent.
4 Assignments
Litigations
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A method and apparatus for retrieving, verifying, and using information accessible by a directory service agent to authenticate electronic messages is described. The method comprises the steps of transmitting an open connection message to establish communication between a directory user agent and a directory service agent, searching a directory in the directory service agent for authentication certificates, fetching the found authentication certificates, and transmitting the fetched authentication certificates to the directory user agent. In one embodiment of the invention, the method also comprises the step of searching the directory for authentication certificates responsive to a search criteria message in the open connection message.
-
Citations
32 Claims
-
1. A method of retrieving an authentication certificate from a directory accessible by a directory service agent in a directory user agent, comprising the steps of:
-
transmitting an open connection message comprising a search criteria message including certificate attributes to establish communication between the directory user agent and the directory service agent; searching the directory for authentication certificates responsive to the search criteria message; fetching the authentication certificates; and transmitting the fetched authentication certificates to the directory user agent. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 21, 22, 23, 24)
-
-
9. An apparatus for retrieving an authentication certificate from a directory accessible by a directory service agent in a directory user agent comprising:
-
a computer implementing the directory user agent communicatively coupled to the directory service agent; means, performed by the computer, for transmitting an open connection message comprising a search criteria message including certificate attributes to establish communication between the directory user agent and the directory service agent; means, performed by the computer, for searching the directory for authentication certificates responsive to the search criteria message; means, performed by the computer, for fetching the authentication certificates; and means, performed by the computer, for transmitting the fetched authentication certificates to the directory user agent. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 25, 26, 27, 28)
-
-
17. A program storage device, readable by a computer, tangibly embodying one or more programs of instructions executable by the computer to perform one or more programs of instruction executable by the computer to perform method steps of retrieving an authentication certificate from a directory accessible by a directory service agent in a directory user agent, the method steps comprising the steps of:
-
transmitting an open connection message comprising a search criteria message including certificate attributes to establish communication between the directory user agent and the directory service agent; searching the directory for authentication certificates responsive to the search criteria message; fetching the authentication certificates; and transmitting the fetched authentication certificates to the directory user agent. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20, 29, 30, 31, 32)
-
Specification