[OpenCA-announce] OpenCA v0.8.0 -- Released (2 Nov 2001)

[<ope...@li...>]

  OpenCA Project Overview:
  ========================

    The OpenCA Project is a  collaborative effort  to  develop a robust,
    full featured and Open Source out-of-the-box Certification Authority
    implementing the most used protocols with full-strength cryptography
    world-wide. OpenCA is based on many Open Source Projects.  Among the
    supported software is  OpenLDAP,  OpenSSL,  Apache  Project's httpd,
    mod_ssl. 

    The project development is divided into two main  tasks:  studying
    and refining the security scheme that guarantees the best model to
    be used in a CA and developing software to easily setup and manage
    a Certification Authority.


  Project Status:
  ===============

    OpenCA version 0.9.0 Status: Developing
    OpenCA version 0.8.0 Status: Released 02 Nov 2001
    OpenCA version 0.6.0 Status: [ Never Released ]
    OpenCA version 0.2.0 Status: Released 16 Nov 1999


  OpenCA Current features:
  ======================== 

  o Certification Authority can now import requests, list certificate 
    requests, export certs, archive requests, view archived requests, 
    delete requests, issue certificates, verify RA operator identity,
    export CRL;

  o Registration Authorities Server can list pending/deleted/archived 
    requests, approve requests, export requests  to removable  media, 
    import  new certs from  removable media, import CRLs,  export  CA
    certificate to LDAP, export CRLs to LDAP, initialize LDAP, export
    client certificates to LDAP; 
 
  o Public server can list pending requests, accept PKCS#10 certification
    requests, accept SPKAC certification requests, accept IE certification
    requests, deliver issued certificates to users, deliver issued CRLs
    to users, display CRLs, list users' certificates;
    

  OpenCA differences to previous release (0.2.0): 
  =============================================== 

  o Modularization process completed. OpenCA now uses a series of modules
    to easily code organization and handling of pki related objects (such
    as certificates, crl, requests, etc...).

  o Added support for Internet Explorer for requesting certificates.

  o Stripped off the EMAIL field from certificates (default behaviour,
    this could be avoided by editing the email_in_dn parameter in the
    provided openssl configuration file);

  o Initial Certificate extensions management. Actually it is possible to
    add new certificates profiles (using openssl extfiles). This gives
    the possibility both to the RA Operator and to the CA Operator to
    choose the certificate's profile to be used.

  o Added support for managing DNs before approving a request.

  o LDAP support included using new perl-ldap module over the Net-LDAPApi
    one. We have decided to move to the perl-ldap module because of many
    problems found when installing the old Net-LDAPApi module as this is
    no more supported and incompatibility issues arise with openldap 2.xx
    versions.

  o DB backend support added for PKI related objects. The DB backend
    currently has support for file-based DBMs and for SQL DBMs (mySql,
    Oracle, DB2, Postgres).

  o DBMs backend initialization is web-based both on the RAServer and
    on the CA.
    
  o Installation now uses autoconf scripts. The autoconf script usage
    is aimed towards the easy of the installation process on different
    platforms.

  o Enabled RA Operator's signature verification before issuing the new
    certificate (uses the openca-verify command of the OpenCA-SV package).

  o Bugfixing.



  References:
  ===========

  The OpenCA Project main website can be found at http://www.openca.org (or
  at http://openca.sourceforge.net). You can find all current versions and
  available documentation there.

  You can also download any part of the software or documentation also at the
  official ftp site:

             ftp://ftp.openca.org
             ftp://openca.sourceforge.net/pub/openca  (soon removed)

  or from one of the official mirrors:

             http://www.openca.org/openca/mirrors.shtml
             
           
                                                   OpenCA Developers Group


--o-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Massimiliano Pala [OpenCA Project Manager]                  ma...@cp...
                                                          ma...@op...
                                                     ma...@ha...
http://www.openca.org                            Tel.:   +39 (0)59  270  094
http://openca.sourceforge.net                    Mobile: +39 (0)347 7222 365