uts-server/README.rst

uts-server

Micro RFC 3161 Time-Stamp server written in C.

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Doc

Uts-Server documentation on ReadTheDoc

Dev

Uts-Server source code on GitHub

License

MIT

Author

Pierre-Francois Carpentier - copyright © 2016

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License

Released under the MIT Public License

What is RFC 3161?

An RFC 3161 time-stamp is basically a cryptographic signature with a date attached.

Roughly, it works as follow:

1. A client application sends an hash of the data it wants to time-stamp to a Time-Stamp authority server.
2. The Time-Stamp authority server retrieves the current date, concatenates it with the hash and uses its private key to create the time-stamp (kind of like a signature).
3. The Time-Stamp authority server returns the generated time-stamp to the client application.

Then a client can verify the piece of data with the time-stamp using the Certificate Authority of the time-stamp key pair (X509 certificates).

It gives a cryptographic proof of a piece of data content, like a file, at a given time.

Some use cases:

• time-stamp log files at rotation time.
• time-stamp file at upload to prove it was delivered in due time or not.

Quick Start

# Building with civetweb embedded (will recover civetweb from github).
$ cmake . -DBUNDLE_CIVETWEB=ON
$ make

# Create some test certificates.
$ ./tests/cfg/pki/create_tsa_certs

# Launching the time-stamp server with test configuration in debug mode.
$ ./uts-server -c tests/cfg/uts-server.cnf -D

# In another shell, launching a time-stamp script on the README.md file.
$ ./goodies/timestamp-file.sh -i README.rst -u http://localhost:2020 -r -O "-cert";

# Verify the time-stamp.
$ openssl ts -verify -in README.rst.tsr -data README.rst -CAfile ./tests/cfg/pki/tsaca.pem

# Display the time-stamp content.
$ openssl ts -reply -in README.rst.tsr -text

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