MessageTimestamper Class
Properties Methods Events Configuration Settings Errors
The MessageTimestamper class timestamps data and stores it in the PKCS#7 format.
Syntax
MessageTimestamper
Remarks
PKCS#7 (Public Key Cryptography Standard #7) is a common format used to store encrypted and signed data. It is used by a variety of protocols, including S/MIME and CMS.
Property List
The following is the full list of the properties of the class with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.
| DataFileName | A file name to be saved together with the timestamped data. |
| DataURI | The URI to be included with the timestamped data. |
| Detached | Specifies whether a detached timestamp should be produced. |
| FIPSMode | Reserved. |
| InputBytes | Use this property to pass the input to class in the byte array form. |
| InputFile | A path to the source file. |
| OutputBytes | Use this property to read the output the class object has produced. |
| OutputFile | A path to the output file. |
| TimestampServer | The address of the timestamping server. |
| TimestampType | TBD. |
Method List
The following is the full list of the methods of the class with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.
| Config | Sets or retrieves a configuration setting. |
| DoAction | Performs an additional action. |
| Timestamp | Timestamps the data. |
Event List
The following is the full list of the events fired by the class with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.
| Error | Information about errors during PKCS#7 message encryption. |
| Notification | This event notifies the application about an underlying control flow event. |
Configuration Settings
The following is a list of configuration settings for the class with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.
| MediaType | Media type. |
| ProtectMetadata | Protect metadata. |
| TempPath | Path for storing temporary files. |
| UseUndefSize | Allows or forbids the use of ASN.1 tags of undefined size. |
| CheckKeyIntegrityBeforeUse | Enables or disable private key integrity check before use. |
| CookieCaching | Specifies whether a cookie cache should be used for HTTP(S) transports. |
| Cookies | Gets or sets local cookies for the class (supported for HTTPClient, RESTClient and SOAPClient only). |
| DefDeriveKeyIterations | Specifies the default key derivation algorithm iteration count. |
| EnableClientSideSSLFFDHE | Enables or disables finite field DHE key exchange support in TLS clients. |
| GlobalCookies | Gets or sets global cookies for all the HTTP transports. |
| HttpUserAgent | Specifies the user agent name to be used by all HTTP clients. |
| LogDestination | Specifies the debug log destination. |
| LogDetails | Specifies the debug log details to dump. |
| LogFile | Specifies the debug log filename. |
| LogFilters | Specifies the debug log filters. |
| LogFlushMode | Specifies the log flush mode. |
| LogLevel | Specifies the debug log level. |
| LogMaxEventCount | Specifies the maximum number of events to cache before further action is taken. |
| LogRotationMode | Specifies the log rotation mode. |
| MaxASN1BufferLength | Specifies the maximal allowed length for ASN.1 primitive tag data. |
| MaxASN1TreeDepth | Specifies the maximal depth for processed ASN.1 trees. |
| OCSPHashAlgorithm | Specifies the hash algorithm to be used to identify certificates in OCSP requests. |
| Tag | Allows to store any custom data. |
| UseSharedSystemStorages | Specifies whether the validation engine should use a global per-process copy of the system certificate stores. |
| UseSystemOAEPAndPSS | Enforces or disables the use of system-driven RSA OAEP and PSS computations. |
| UseSystemRandom | Enables or disables the use of the OS PRNG. |
DataFileName Property (MessageTimestamper Class)
A file name to be saved together with the timestamped data.
Syntax
QString GetDataFileName();
int SetDataFileName(QString qsDataFileName);
Default Value
""
Remarks
Use this property to provide a file name to be stored in the timestamp together with the timestamped data. This is only informational and does not necessarily need to match the file name provided via InputFile.
Data Type
String
DataURI Property (MessageTimestamper Class)
The URI to be included with the timestamped data.
Syntax
QString GetDataURI();
int SetDataURI(QString qsDataURI);
Default Value
""
Remarks
Use this property to provide a URI to be saved alongside the timestamped data. This value is only informational.
Data Type
String
Detached Property (MessageTimestamper Class)
Specifies whether a detached timestamp should be produced.
Syntax
bool GetDetached();
int SetDetached(bool bDetached);
Default Value
false
Remarks
Set this property to true to produce a detached timestamp, i.e. kept separately and alongside the timestamped document.
Data Type
Boolean
FIPSMode Property (MessageTimestamper Class)
Reserved.
Syntax
bool GetFIPSMode();
int SetFIPSMode(bool bFIPSMode);
Default Value
false
Remarks
This property is reserved for future use.
Data Type
Boolean
InputBytes Property (MessageTimestamper Class)
Use this property to pass the input to class in the byte array form.
Syntax
QByteArray GetInputBytes();
int SetInputBytes(QByteArray qbaInputBytes);
Remarks
Assign a byte array containing the data to be processed to this property.
This property is not available at design time.
Data Type
Byte Array
InputFile Property (MessageTimestamper Class)
A path to the source file.
Syntax
QString GetInputFile();
int SetInputFile(QString qsInputFile);
Default Value
""
Remarks
Use this property to provide a path to the file containing the data to be timestamped.
Data Type
String
OutputBytes Property (MessageTimestamper Class)
Use this property to read the output the class object has produced.
Syntax
QByteArray GetOutputBytes();
Remarks
Read the contents of this property after the operation is completed to read the produced output. This property will only be set if OutputFile and OutputStream properties had not been assigned.
This property is read-only and not available at design time.
Data Type
Byte Array
OutputFile Property (MessageTimestamper Class)
A path to the output file.
Syntax
QString GetOutputFile();
int SetOutputFile(QString qsOutputFile);
Default Value
""
Remarks
Use this property to specify the file to save the timestamped message to.
Data Type
String
TimestampServer Property (MessageTimestamper Class)
The address of the timestamping server.
Syntax
QString GetTimestampServer();
int SetTimestampServer(QString qsTimestampServer);
Default Value
""
Remarks
Use this property to provide the address of the Time Stamping Authority (TSA) server to be used for timestamping the signature.
SecureBlackbox supports RFC3161-compliant timestamping servers, available via HTTP or HTTPS.
If your timestamping service enforces credential-based user authentication (basic or digest), you can provide the credentials in the same URL:
http://user:password@timestamp.server.com/TsaService
For TSAs using certificate-based TLS authentication, provide the client certificate via the TLSClientChain property.
If this property is left empty, no timestamp will be added to the signature.
Starting from summer 2021 update (Vol. 2), the virtual timestamping service is supported, which allows you to intervene in the timestamping routine and provide your own handling for the TSA exchange. This may be handy if the service that you are requesting timestamps from uses a non-standard TSP protocol or requires special authentication option.
To employ the virtual service, assign an URI of the following format to this property:
virtual://localhost?hashonly=true&includecerts=true&reqpolicy=1.2.3.4.5&halg=SHA256
Subscribe to Notification event to get notified about the virtualized timestamping event. The EventID of the timestamping event is TimestampRequest. Inside the event handler, read the base16-encoded request from the EventParam parameter and forward it to the timestamping authority. Upon receiving the response, pass it back to the component, encoded in base16, via the TimestampResponse config property:
component.Config("TimestampResponse=308208ab...");
Note that all the exchange with your custom TSA should take place within the same invocation of the Notification event.
The hashonly parameter of the virtual URI tells the component to only return the timestamp message imprint via the EventParam parameter. If set to false, EventParam will contain the complete RFC3161 timestamping request.
The includecerts parameter specifies that the requestCertificates parameter of the timestamping request should be set to true.
The reqpolicy parameter lets you specify the request policy, and the halg parameter specifies the hash algorithm to use for timestamping.
All the parameters are optional.
Data Type
String
TimestampType Property (MessageTimestamper Class)
TBD.
Syntax
QString GetTimestampType();
int SetTimestampType(QString qsTimestampType);
Default Value
""
Remarks
TBD
Data Type
String
Config Method (MessageTimestamper Class)
Sets or retrieves a configuration setting.
Syntax
QString Config(const QString& qsConfigurationString);
Remarks
Config is a generic method available in every class. It is used to set and retrieve configuration settings for the class.
These settings are similar in functionality to properties, but they are rarely used. In order to avoid "polluting" the property namespace of the class, access to these internal properties is provided through the Config method.
To set a configuration setting named PROPERTY, you must call Config("PROPERTY=VALUE"), where VALUE is the value of the setting expressed as a string. For boolean values, use the strings "True", "False", "0", "1", "Yes", or "No" (case does not matter).
To read (query) the value of a configuration setting, you must call Config("PROPERTY"). The value will be returned as a string.
Error Handling
This method returns a String value; after it returns, call the GetLastErrorCode() method to obtain its result code; 0 indicates success, while a non-zero error code indicates that this method encountered an error during its execution. If an error occurs, the GetLastError() method can be called to retrieve the associated error message.
DoAction Method (MessageTimestamper Class)
Performs an additional action.
Syntax
QString DoAction(const QString& qsActionID, const QString& qsActionParams);
Remarks
DoAction is a generic method available in every class. It is used to perform an additional action introduced after the product major release. The list of actions is not fixed, and may be flexibly extended over time.
The unique identifier of the action is provided in ActionID parameter. ActionParams contains a list of parameters for the action in the form of PARAM1=VALUE1;PARAM2=VALUE2;....
Error Handling
This method returns a String value; after it returns, call the GetLastErrorCode() method to obtain its result code; 0 indicates success, while a non-zero error code indicates that this method encountered an error during its execution. If an error occurs, the GetLastError() method can be called to retrieve the associated error message.
Timestamp Method (MessageTimestamper Class)
Timestamps the data.
Syntax
int Timestamp();
Remarks
Call this method to timestamp the content provided in InputFile (or InputStream) with a trusted timestamp from TimestampServer.
Error Handling
This method returns a result code; 0 indicates success, while a non-zero error code indicates that this method encountered an error during its execution. If an error occurs, the GetLastError() method can be called to retrieve the associated error message. (Note: This method's result code can also be obtained by calling the GetLastErrorCode() method after it returns.)
Error Event (MessageTimestamper Class)
Information about errors during PKCS#7 message encryption.
Syntax
class MessageTimestamperErrorEventParams {
public:
int ErrorCode();
const QString &Description();
int EventRetVal();
void SetEventRetVal(int iRetVal);
};
// To handle, connect one or more slots to this signal.
void Error(MessageTimestamperErrorEventParams *e);
// Or, subclass MessageTimestamper and override this emitter function.
virtual int FireError(MessageTimestamperErrorEventParams *e) {...}
Remarks
The event is fired in case of exceptional conditions during message processing.
ErrorCode contains an error code and Description contains a textual description of the error. For a list of valid error codes and their descriptions, please refer to the Messages section.
Notification Event (MessageTimestamper Class)
This event notifies the application about an underlying control flow event.
Syntax
class MessageTimestamperNotificationEventParams {
public:
const QString &EventID();
const QString &EventParam();
int EventRetVal();
void SetEventRetVal(int iRetVal);
};
// To handle, connect one or more slots to this signal.
void Notification(MessageTimestamperNotificationEventParams *e);
// Or, subclass MessageTimestamper and override this emitter function.
virtual int FireNotification(MessageTimestamperNotificationEventParams *e) {...}
Remarks
The class fires this event to let the application know about some event, occurrence, or milestone in the component. For example, it may fire to report completion of the document processing. The list of events being reported is not fixed, and may be flexibly extended over time.
The unique identifier of the event is provided in EventID parameter. EventParam contains any parameters accompanying the occurrence. Depending on the type of the component, the exact action it is performing, or the document being processed, one or both may be omitted.
This class can fire this event with the following EventID values:
| TimestampRequest | A timestamp is requested from the custom timestamping
authority. This event is only fired if TimestampServer was set to a
virtual:// URI. The EventParam parameter contains the
TSP request (or the plain hash, depending on the value provided to
TimestampServer), in base16, that needs to be sent to the TSA.
Use the event handler to send the request to the TSA. Upon receiving the response, assign it, in base16, to the TimestampResponse configuration property. |
Configuration Settings (MessageTimestamper Class)
The class accepts one or more of the following configuration settings. Configuration settings are similar in functionality to properties, but they are rarely used. In order to avoid "polluting" the property namespace of the class, access to these internal properties is provided through the Config method.MessageTimestamper Configuration Settings | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| MediaType: Media type.The media type. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ProtectMetadata: Protect metadata.Set to true to include the metadata to the timestamp coverage. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| TempPath: Path for storing temporary files.This setting specifies an absolute path to the location on disk where temporary files are stored. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| UseUndefSize: Allows or forbids the use of ASN.1 tags of undefined size.Usually PKCS#7 messages are handled correctly when undefined-size tags are used. However some ASN.1 parsers (S/MIME handler in Outlook Express, security plugins of Adobe Acrobat) can't correctly handle such tags. If you are targeting such software, you need this property. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Base Configuration Settings | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| CheckKeyIntegrityBeforeUse:
Enables or disable private key integrity check before use.This global property enables or disables private key material check before each signing operation. This slows down performance a bit,
but prevents a selection of attacks on RSA keys where keys with unknown origins are used.
You can switch this property off to improve performance if your project only uses known, good private keys. |
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| CookieCaching:
Specifies whether a cookie cache should be used for HTTP(S) transports.Set this property to enable or disable cookies caching for the class.
Supported values are:
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| Cookies: Gets or sets local cookies for the class (supported for HTTPClient, RESTClient and SOAPClient only).Use this property to get cookies from the internal cookie storage of the class and/or restore them back between application sessions. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| DefDeriveKeyIterations: Specifies the default key derivation algorithm iteration count.This global property sets the default number of iterations for all supported key derivation algorithms. Note that you can provide the required number of iterations by using properties of the relevant key generation component; this global setting is used in scenarios where specific iteration count is not or cannot be provided. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| EnableClientSideSSLFFDHE:
Enables or disables finite field DHE key exchange support in TLS clients.This global property enables or disables support for finite field DHE key exchange methods in TLS clients. FF DHE is a slower
algorithm if compared to EC DHE; enabling it may result in slower connections.
This setting only applies to sessions negotiated with TLS version 1.3. |
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| GlobalCookies: Gets or sets global cookies for all the HTTP transports.Use this property to get cookies from the GLOBAL cookie storage or restore them back between application sessions. These cookies will be used by all the classes that have its CookieCaching property set to "global". | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| HttpUserAgent: Specifies the user agent name to be used by all HTTP clients.This global setting defines the User-Agent field of the HTTP request provides information about the software that initiates the request. This value will be used by all the HTTP clients including the ones used internally in other classes. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| LogDestination:
Specifies the debug log destination.Contains a comma-separated list of values that specifies where debug log should be dumped.
Supported values are:
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| LogDetails:
Specifies the debug log details to dump.Contains a comma-separated list of values that specifies which debug log details to dump.
Supported values are:
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| LogFile: Specifies the debug log filename.Use this property to provide a path to the log file. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| LogFilters:
Specifies the debug log filters.Contains a comma-separated list of value pairs ("name:value") that describe filters.
Supported filter names are:
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LogFlushMode:
Specifies the log flush mode.Use this property to set the log flush mode. The following values are defined:
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| LogLevel:
Specifies the debug log level.Use this property to provide the desired debug log level.
Supported values are:
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| LogMaxEventCount:
Specifies the maximum number of events to cache before further action is taken.Use this property to specify the log event number threshold. This threshold may have different effects,
depending on the rotation setting and/or the flush mode.
The default value of this setting is 100. |
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LogRotationMode:
Specifies the log rotation mode.Use this property to set the log rotation mode. The following values are defined:
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| MaxASN1BufferLength: Specifies the maximal allowed length for ASN.1 primitive tag data.This global property limits the maximal allowed length for ASN.1 tag data for non-content-carrying structures, such as certificates, CRLs, or timestamps. It does not affect structures that can carry content, such as CMS/CAdES messages. This is a security property aiming at preventing DoS attacks. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| MaxASN1TreeDepth: Specifies the maximal depth for processed ASN.1 trees.This global property limits the maximal depth of ASN.1 trees that the component can handle without throwing an error. This is a security property aiming at preventing DoS attacks. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| OCSPHashAlgorithm: Specifies the hash algorithm to be used to identify certificates in OCSP requests.This global setting defines the hash algorithm to use in OCSP requests during chain validation. Some OCSP responders can only use older algorithms, in which case setting this property to SHA1 may be helpful. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tag: Allows to store any custom data.Use this config property to store any custom data. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| UseSharedSystemStorages: Specifies whether the validation engine should use a global per-process copy of the system certificate stores.Set this global property to false to make each validation run use its own copy of system certificate stores. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| UseSystemOAEPAndPSS:
Enforces or disables the use of system-driven RSA OAEP and PSS computations.This global setting defines who is responsible for performing RSA-OAEP and RSA-PSS computations where the private key is stored in a Windows system store and is exportable.
If set to true, SBB will delegate the computations to Windows via a CryptoAPI call. Otherwise, it will export the key material and perform the computations
using its own OAEP/PSS implementation.
This setting only applies to certificates originating from a Windows system store. |
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| UseSystemRandom: Enables or disables the use of the OS PRNG.Use this global property to enable or disable the use of operating system-driven pseudorandom number generation. |
Trappable Errors (MessageTimestamper Class)
MessageTimestamper Errors
| 1048577 Invalid parameter value (SB_ERROR_INVALID_PARAMETER) | |
| 1048578 Class is configured incorrectly (SB_ERROR_INVALID_SETUP) | |
| 1048579 Operation cannot be executed in the current state (SB_ERROR_INVALID_STATE) | |
| 1048580 Attempt to set an invalid value to a property (SB_ERROR_INVALID_VALUE) | |
| 1048581 Certificate does not have its private key loaded (SB_ERROR_NO_PRIVATE_KEY) | |
| 1048581 Cancelled by the user (SB_ERROR_CANCELLED_BY_USER) |