Added HOWTO about proxy certificates.

doc/HOWTO/proxy_certificates.txt

+<DRAFT!>
+			HOWTO proxy certificates
+
+0. WARNING
+
+NONE OF THE CODE PRESENTED HERE HAVE BEEN CHECKED!  They are just an
+example to show you how things can be done.  There may be typos or
+type conflicts, and you will have to resolve them.
+
+1. Introduction
+
+Proxy certificates are defined in RFC 3820.  They are really usual
+certificates with the mandatory extension proxyCertInfo.
+
+Proxy certificates are issued by an End Entity (typically a user),
+either directly with the EE certificate as issuing certificate, or by
+extension through an already issued proxy certificate..  They are used
+to extend rights to some other entity (a computer process, typically,
+or sometimes to the user itself), so it can perform operations in the
+name of the owner of the EE certificate.
+
+See http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3820.txt for more information.
+
+
+2. How to create proxy cerificates
+
+It's quite easy to create proxy certificates, by taking advantage of
+the lack of checks of the 'openssl x509' application (*ahem*).  But
+first, you need to create a configuration section that contains a
+definition of the proxyCertInfo extension, a little like this:
+
+  [ v3_proxy ]
+  # A proxy certificate MUST NEVER be a CA certificate.
+  basicConstraints=CA:FALSE
+
+  # Usual authority key ID
+  authorityKeyIdentifier=keyid,issuer:always
+
+  # Now, for the extension that marks this certificate as a proxy one
+  proxyCertInfo=critical,language:id-ppl-anyLanguage,pathlen:1,policy:text:AB
+
+It's also possible to give the proxy extension in a separate section:
+
+  proxyCertInfo=critical,@proxy_ext
+
+  [ proxy_ext ]
+  language=id-ppl-anyLanguage
+  pathlen=0
+  policy=text:BC
+
+The policy value has a specific syntax, {syntag}:{string}, where the
+syntag determines what will be done with the string.  The recognised
+syntags are as follows:
+
+  text	indicates that the string is simply the bytes, not
+	encoded in any kind of way:
+
+		policy=text:räksmörgås
+
+	Previous versions of this design had a specific tag
+	for UTF-8 text.  However, since the bytes are copied
+	as-is anyway, there's no need for it.  Instead, use
+	the text: tag, like this:
+
+		policy=text:räksmörgås
+
+  hex	indicates the string is encoded in hex, with colons
+	between each byte (every second hex digit):
+
+		policy=hex:72:E4:6B:73:6D:F6:72:67:E5:73
+
+	Previous versions of this design had a tag to insert a
+	complete DER blob.  However, the only legal use for
+	this would be to surround the bytes that would go with
+	the hex: tag with what's needed to construct a correct
+	OCTET STRING.  Since hex: does that, the DER tag felt
+	superfluous, and was therefore removed.
+
+  file	indicates that the text of the policy should really be
+	taken from a file.  The string is then really a file
+	name.  This is useful for policies that are large
+	(more than a few of lines) XML documents, for example.
+
+The 'policy' setting can be split up in multiple lines like this:
+
+  0.policy=This is
+  1.polisy= a multi-
+  2.policy=line policy.
+
+NOTE: the proxy policy value is the part that determines the rights
+granted to the process using the proxy certificate.  The value is
+completely dependent on the application reading and interpretting it!
+
+Now that you have created an extension section for your proxy
+certificate, you can now easily create a proxy certificate like this:
+
+  openssl req -new -config openssl.cnf \
+	  -out proxy.req -keyout proxy.key
+  openssl x509 -req -CAcreateserial -in proxy.req -days 7 \
+	  -out proxy.crt -CA user.crt -CAkey user.key \
+	  -extfile openssl.cnf -extensions v3_proxy
+
+It's just as easy to create a proxy certificate using another proxy
+certificate as issuer (note that I'm using a different configuration
+section for it):
+
+  openssl req -new -config openssl.cnf \
+	  -out proxy2.req -keyout proxy2.key
+  openssl x509 -req -CAcreateserial -in proxy2.req -days 7 \
+	  -out proxy2.crt -CA proxy.crt -CAkey proxy.key \
+	  -extfile openssl.cnf -extensions v3_proxy2
+
+
+3. How to have your application interpret the policy?
+
+The basic way to interpret proxy policies is to prepare some default
+rights, then do a check of the proxy certificate against the a chain
+of proxy certificates, user certificate and CA certificates, and see
+what rights came out by the end.  Sounds easy, huh?  It almost is.
+
+The slightly complicated part is how to pass data between your
+application and the certificate validation procedure.
+
+You need the following ingredients:
+
+ - a callback routing that will be called for every certificate that's
+   validated.  It will be called several times for each certificates,
+   so you must be attentive to when it's a good time to do the proxy
+   policy interpretation and check, as well as to fill in the defaults
+   when the EE certificate is checked.
+
+ - a structure of data that's shared between your application code and
+   the callback.
+
+ - a wrapper function that sets it all up.
+
+ - an ex_data index function that creates an index into the generic
+   ex_data store that's attached to an X509 validation context.
+
+This is some cookbook code for you to fill in:
+
+  /* In this example, I will use a view of granted rights as a bit
+     array, one bit for each possible right.  */
+  typedef struct your_rights {
+    unsigned char rights[total_rights / 8];
+  } YOUR_RIGHTS;
+
+  /* The following procedure will create an index for the ex_data
+     store in the X509 validation context the first time it's called.
+     Subsequent calls will return the same index.  */
+  static int get_proxy_auth_ex_data_idx(void)
+  {
+    static volatile int idx = -1;
+    if (idx < 0)
+      {
+        CRYPTO_w_lock(CRYPTO_LOCK_X509_STORE);
+        if (idx < 0)
+          {
+            idx = X509_STORE_CTX_get_ex_new_index(0,
+                                                  "for verify callback",
+                                                  NULL,NULL,NULL);
+          }
+        CRYPTO_w_unlock(CRYPTO_LOCK_X509_STORE);
+      }
+    return idx;
+  }
+
+  /* Callback to be given to the X509 validation procedure.  */
+  static int verify_callback(int ok, X509_STORE_CTX *ctx)
+  {
+    if (ok == 1) /* It's REALLY important you keep the proxy policy
+                    check within this secion.  It's important to know
+                    that when ok is 1, the certificates are checked
+                    from top to bottom.  You get the CA root first,
+                    followed by the possible chain of intermediate
+                    CAs, followed by the EE certificate, followed by
+                    the possible proxy certificates.  */
+      {
+        X509 *xs = ctx->current_cert;
+
+        if (xs->ex_flags & EXFLAG_PROXY)
+          {
+	    YOUR_RIGHTS *rights =
+              (YOUR_RIGHTS *)X509_STORE_CTX_get_ex_data(ctx,
+                get_proxy_auth_ex_data_idx());
+            PROXY_CERT_INFO_EXTENSION *pci =
+              X509_get_ext_d2i(xs, NID_proxyCertInfo, NULL, NULL);
+
+            switch (OBJ_obj2nid(pci->proxyPolicy->policyLanguage))
+              {
+              case NID_Independent:
+                /* Do whatever you need to grant explicit rights to
+                   this particular proxy certificate, usually by
+                   pulling them from some database.  If there are none
+                   to be found, clear all rights (making this and any
+                   subsequent proxy certificate void of any rights).
+                */
+                memset(rights->rights, 0, sizeof(rights->rights));
+                break;
+              case NID_id_ppl_inheritAll:
+                /* This is basically a NOP, we simply let the current
+                   rights stand as they are. */
+                break;
+              default:
+                /* This is usually the most complex section of code.
+                   You really do whatever you want as long as you
+                   follow RFC 3820.  In the example we use here, the
+                   simplest thing to do is to build another, temporary
+                   bit array and fill it with the rights granted by
+                   the current proxy certificate, then use it as a
+                   mask on the accumulated rights bit array, and
+                   voilà, you now have a new accumulated rights bit
+                   array.  */
+                {
+                  int i;
+                  YOUR_RIGHTS tmp_rights;
+		  memset(tmp_rights.rights, 0, sizeof(tmp_rights.rights));
+
+                  /* process_rights() is supposed to be a procedure
+                     that takes a string and it's length, interprets
+                     it and sets the bits in the YOUR_RIGHTS pointed
+                     at by the third argument.  */
+                  process_rights((char *) pci->proxyPolicy->policy->data,
+                                 pci->proxyPolicy->policy->length,
+                                 &tmp_rights);
+
+                  for(i = 0; i < total_rights / 8; i++)
+                    rights->rights[i] &= tmp_rights.rights[i];
+                }
+                break;
+              }
+            PROXY_CERT_INFO_EXTENSION_free(pci);
+          }
+        else if (!(xs->ex_flags & EXFLAG_CA))
+          {
+            /* We have a EE certificate, let's use it to set default!
+            */
+	    YOUR_RIGHTS *rights =
+              (YOUR_RIGHTS *)X509_STORE_CTX_get_ex_data(ctx,
+                get_proxy_auth_ex_data_idx());
+
+            /* The following procedure finds out what rights the owner
+               of the current certificate has, and sets them in the
+               YOUR_RIGHTS structure pointed at by the second
+               argument.  */
+            set_default_rights(xs, rights);
+          }
+      }
+    return ok;
+  }
+
+  static int my_X509_verify_cert(X509_STORE_CTX *ctx,
+                                 YOUR_RIGHTS *needed_rights)
+  {
+    int i;
+    int (*save_verify_cb)(int ok,X509_STORE_CTX *ctx) = ctx->verify_cb;
+    YOUR_RIGHTS rights;
+
+    X509_STORE_CTX_set_verify_cb(ctx, verify_callback);
+    X509_STORE_CTX_set_ex_data(ctx, get_proxy_auth_ex_data_idx(), &rights);
+    ok = X509_verify_cert(ctx);
+
+    if (ok == 1)
+      {
+        ok = check_needed_rights(rights, needed_rights);
+      }
+
+    X509_STORE_CTX_set_verify_cb(ctx, save_verify_cb);
+
+    return ok;
+  }
+
+If you use SSL or TLS, you can easily set up a callback to have the
+certificates checked properly, using the code above:
+
+  SSL_CTX_set_cert_verify_callback(s_ctx, my_X509_verify_cert, &needed_rights);
+
+
+-- 
+Richard Levitte