CODEWITHSUNDEEP
digital-signaturepublic-key-encryption
dariopy
dariopy

Reputation: 578

How can I make users digitally sign XML documents?

I'm building a web application that builds a XML document based on the user input. After the doc is created, it needs to follow an approval path, e.g. a workflow, where several users "sign" the document. The signature from the user point of view is just checking a field and clickin "accept", but what I need is for the document to be digitally signed in each step, to finally store it signed in a database.

What kind of devices/tools do I need to use? X.509 certificates on the client browser? Public/Private keys generated by the app? Any link to documentation will be appreciated.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1619

Answers (1)

Eugene Mayevski 'Callback
Eugene Mayevski 'Callback

Reputation: 46040

Certificates are not normally generated by the application (since PKI is about trust, which is hierarchical in case of certificates). Users acquire certificates with private keys (let's say so for simplicity) and store them in the safe place or on hardware devices (smartcards, USB tokens).

Then those certificates are used to sign information. In case of web application you can either transfer the data itself to the client or send a hash of the data there, but in any case signing takes place on the client side (except rare cases where certificates are stored on central server and access to them is authorized by the client each time the certificate is used).

We offer components for distributed signing of data. This answer contains detailed description of how such signing works. You can use our solution or create your own, that will do the same.

Upvotes: 1

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