Detailed Explanation of PKI Certificate User Authorization of HTTP Requests

Question

I need to enable NodeJS access to Windows Certificate Store. Saving the certificate to a file is not an option.

I am working on extending NodeJS to access the Windows certificate store for user authentication and authorization supporting of OATH 1.0,2.0 and perhaps SAML. I have successfully built a project and have the C code searching the store or invoking the GUI to choose a certificate, then accessing it and getting the properties in the same format as I see in certificate manager. I also get the cert in PEM format to a string, that matches the file when I export.

The PEM formatted string includes the public key, NOT the private key.

When using a smart card and logging into a web site using OATH, I am prompted for my card’s PIN. Implying I am encrypting or decrypting something with the private key. I can only find top level diagrams of the process… any detail or code involves Basic Authorization user/password or Bearer tokens… I need to understand what functions NodeJS needs exposed from the store, beyond: Find a cert Return it’s properties ( in strings) Get the Cert in PEM format with public key (in a string) …what’s next????? To support OATH and SAML using client certificates Do I need to decrypt something sent back from the server? Session cookie???