SMIME Component

Properties Methods Events Configuration Settings Errors

The SMIME component implements the S/MIME standard for encryption and decryption with public key cryptography and X.509 digital certificates.

Syntax

nsoftware.IPWorksEncrypt.Smime

Remarks

The SMIME component implements the S/MIME V3 standard for encryption and decryption using Public Key Cryptography Standards (PKCS). In addition the component can be used to both generate and verify RSA digital signatures. Using this component for decrypting or signing requires a valid digital certificate with a private key.

To sign the current data included in Message with a certificate, the Certificate property must be set to a valid Certificate object for the signing certificate. The IncludeCertificate and DetachedSignature properties allow you to specify additional details about the signing process. By setting IncludeCertificate to true, digital certificates can be encoded and included in message signature when signing the document. Including a certificate is the preferred method of building signed messages. In addition the SMIME component can also generate PKCS #7 formatted detached digital signatures and envelopes by specifying DetachedSignature.

To encrypt a message with the component in a PCKS envelope, you must first specify the Certificate for each recipient in the RecipientCerts collection to encrypt the message with. You can easily add these with the AddRecipientCert method. Once you have done this you can call the Encrypt method to encrypt the message with the recipient certificates.

In addition, the component allows you to sign and encrypt simultaneously with the SignAndEncrypt method. You must set all of the properties needed for both Sign and Encrypt

The result of the encrypted or signed data will be replaced in the Message property and the MessageHeaders property will be filled with the appropriate mime headers if applicable.

In addition the SMIME component can be used to verify signatures included in signed messages or documents. The Message property is used to specify the signed message envelope. VerifySignature can then be used to verify the signature. If the message does not have a certificate attached more then likely an exception will be thrown and the component will not be able to verify the signature. If VerifySignature is successful, the SignerCert and SignerCertChain properties will be filled with the certificate information of the message signer. This information can be used to verify the signing certificates.

Decrypting PKCS envelopes is handled with the Decrypt method. When this method is called, the component will attempt to find an appropriate certificate in the Certificate property that matches the encrypting certificate. If it cannot find an appropriate certificate an exception will be thrown and the message will not be decrypted.

Similar to SignAndEncrypt, DecryptAndVerifySignature can be used to both decrypt and verify the message in Message.

Property List

The following is the full list of the properties of the component with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.


Certificate	The current selected certificate.
DetachedSignature	Specifies whether to include a detached signature when signing a message.
EncryptingAlgorithm	Textual description of the encrypting algorithm.
IncludeCertificate	Specifies whether to include the signer's certificate with the signed message.
IncludeChain	Specifies whether to include the signer's certificate chain with the signed message.
InternalHeaders	The headers of the MIME entity inside the encrypted or signed message.
Message	The fully encoded or decoded S/MIME message.
MessageEncrypted	Whether or not the current message is encrypted.
MessageHeaders	Collection of headers from the SMIME message.
MessageHeadersString	String version of headers from the SMIME message.
MessageSigned	Whether or not the current message is signed.
RecipientCerts	The collection of recipient certificates of the message.
SignerCert	Contains the certificate of the message signer.
SignerCertChain	The certificate chain of the signing certificate.
SigningAlgorithm	Textual description of the signature hash algorithm.

Method List

The following is the full list of the methods of the component with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.


AddRecipientCert	Used to add recipient certificates used to encrypt messages.
Config	Sets or retrieves a configuration setting .
Decrypt	Decrypts the current Message .
DecryptAndVerifySignature	Decrypts and verifies the signature of the current Message .
DecryptFile	Decrypts the contents of a file.
Encrypt	Encrypts the current Message .
EncryptFile	Encrypts the contents of a file.
GetRecipientInfo	Gets the recipient infos for an encrypted message.
Reset	Resets the component properties.
SetInputStream	Sets the stream from which the component will read data to encode or decode.
SetOutputStream	The stream to which the component will write the fully encoded or decoded S/MIME data.
Sign	Signs the current Message .
SignAndEncrypt	Signs and encrypts the current Message .
VerifySignature	Verifies the signature of the current Message .

Event List

The following is the full list of the events fired by the component with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.


Error	Information about errors during data delivery.
RecipientInfo	Fired for each recipient certificate of the encrypted message.
SignerCertInfo	Fired during verification of the signed message.

Configuration Settings

The following is a list of configuration settings for the component with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.


ApplyB64Encoding	Instructs the component to base64 encode the message when signing or encrypting.
CSP	The Cryptographic Service Provider.
GenerateSignatureTimestamp	Whether to generate timestamps in signatures.
IncludeHeaders	Tells the component whether to include the headers when encoding the message.
IncludeInternalHeaders	Tells the component whether or not to include the internal headers when encoding the message.
ParseInternalHeaders	Tells the component whether or not to parse the message part headers when decrypting a message.
RecipientCert	Used to specify the public certificate when using a PEM key to decrypt.
RecipientCertFile	Used to specify the public certificate file when using a PEM key to decrypt.
UseCryptoAPI	Whether to use the Microsoft Crypto API for cryptographic message generation.
CodePage	The system code page used for Unicode to Multibyte translations.