.\" $OpenBSD: ASN1_item_d2i.3,v 1.18 2023/05/01 07:37:45 tb Exp $ .\" selective merge up to: .\" OpenSSL doc/man3/d2i_X509.pod 256989ce Jun 19 15:00:32 2020 +0200 .\" .\" This file is a derived work. .\" The changes are covered by the following Copyright and license: .\" .\" Copyright (c) 2016, 2021 Ingo Schwarze .\" .\" Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any .\" purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above .\" copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies. .\" .\" THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES .\" WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF .\" MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. 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IN NO EVENT SHALL THE OpenSSL PROJECT OR .\" ITS CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, .\" SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT .\" NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; .\" LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, .\" STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) .\" ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED .\" OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .Dd $Mdocdate: May 1 2023 $ .Dt ASN1_ITEM_D2I 3 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm ASN1_item_d2i , .Nm ASN1_item_d2i_bio , .Nm ASN1_item_d2i_fp , .Nm d2i_ASN1_TYPE , .Nm ASN1_item_i2d , .Nm ASN1_item_i2d_bio , .Nm ASN1_item_i2d_fp , .Nm i2d_ASN1_TYPE , .Nm ASN1_item_dup , .Nm ASN1_item_print .Nd decode and encode ASN.1 objects .Sh SYNOPSIS .In openssl/asn1.h .Ft ASN1_VALUE * .Fo ASN1_item_d2i .Fa "ASN1_VALUE **val_out" .Fa "const unsigned char **der_in" .Fa "long length" .Fa "const ASN1_ITEM *it" .Fc .Ft void * .Fo ASN1_item_d2i_bio .Fa "const ASN1_ITEM *it" .Fa "BIO *in_bio" .Fa "void *val_out" .Fc .Ft void * .Fo ASN1_item_d2i_fp .Fa "const ASN1_ITEM *it" .Fa "FILE *in_fp" .Fa "void *val_out" .Fc .Ft ASN1_TYPE * .Fo d2i_ASN1_TYPE .Fa "ASN1_TYPE **val_out" .Fa "const unsigned char **der_in" .Fa "long length" .Fc .Ft int .Fo ASN1_item_i2d .Fa "ASN1_VALUE *val_in" .Fa "unsigned char **der_out" .Fa "const ASN1_ITEM *it" .Fc .Ft int .Fo ASN1_item_i2d_bio .Fa "const ASN1_ITEM *it" .Fa "BIO *out_bio" .Fa "void *val_in" .Fc .Ft int .Fo ASN1_item_i2d_fp .Fa "const ASN1_ITEM *it" .Fa "FILE *out_fp" .Fa "void *val_in" .Fc .Ft int .Fo i2d_ASN1_TYPE .Fa "ASN1_TYPE *val_in" .Fa "unsigned char **der_out" .Fc .Ft void * .Fo ASN1_item_dup .Fa "const ASN1_ITEM *it" .Fa "void *val_in" .Fc .Ft int .Fo ASN1_item_print .Fa "BIO *out_bio" .Fa "ASN1_VALUE *val_in" .Fa "int indent" .Fa "const ASN1_ITEM *it" .Fa "const ASN1_PCTX *pctx" .Fc .Sh DESCRIPTION These functions convert ASN.1 values from their BER encoding to internal C structures .Pq Dq d2i and vice versa .Pq Dq i2d . Unlike the C structures which contain pointers to sub-objects, BER is a serialized encoding, suitable for transfer over the network and for storage in a file. .Pp .Fn ASN1_item_d2i interprets .Pf * Fa der_in as a DER- or BER-encoded byte array and decodes one value of type .Fa it represented by up to .Fa length bytes. If successful, .Pf * Fa der_in is advanced to the byte following the parsed data. .Pp If decoding succeeds and .Fa val_out or .Pf * Fa val_out is .Dv NULL , a new object is allocated. .Pp If decoding succeeds and .Pf * Fa val_out is not .Dv NULL , it is assumed to point to a valid populated object and an attempt is made to reuse it. It must not be an empty structure such as one returned by .Xr ASN1_item_new 3 or by one of the various type-specific .Fn *_new functions. This .Dq reuse capability is present for backward compatibility, but its use is strongly discouraged; see the .Sx BUGS section below. .Pp .Fn ASN1_item_d2i_bio and .Fn ASN1_item_d2i_fp are similar to .Fn ASN1_item_d2i except that they read from a .Vt BIO or .Vt FILE , respectively. .Pp .Fn d2i_ASN1_TYPE is similar to .Fn ASN1_item_d2i except that it does not require a desired type to be specified by the user, but instead returns an .Vt ASN1_TYPE wrapper object containing both the type and the value found in the input. .Pp .Fn ASN1_item_i2d encodes the object pointed to by .Fa val_in into DER format. .Pp If .Pf * Fa der_out is not .Dv NULL , it writes the DER-encoded data to the buffer at .Pf * Fa der_out and increments it to point after the data just written. In this case, it is the responsibility of the user to make sure that the buffer pointed to by .Pf * Fa der_out is long enough, such that no buffer overflow can occur. .Pp If .Pf * Fa der_out is .Dv NULL , memory is allocated for a buffer, and .Pf * Fa der_out is not incremented, but points to the start of the data just written. .Pp If .Fa der_out is .Dv NULL , the encoded bytes are not written anywhere but discarded. For .Fa val_in objects of variable encoding size, this is sometimes used to first find the number of bytes that will be written. Then, a sufficient amount of memory is allocated before calling .Fn ASN1_item_i2d again. This explicit double-call technique is often not needed because the auto-allocation technique described in the previous paragraph can be used. .Pp .Fn ASN1_item_i2d_bio and .Fn ASN1_item_i2d_fp are similar to .Fn ASN1_item_i2d except that they write to a .Vt BIO or .Vt FILE , respectively. .Pp .Fn i2d_ASN1_TYPE is similar to .Fn ASN1_item_i2d except that the type and the value are not provided separately, but in the form of a single .Vt ASN1_TYPE object. .Pp .Fn ASN1_item_dup creates a deep copy of .Fa val_in by calling .Fn ASN1_item_i2d and .Fn ASN1_item_d2i . .Sh RETURN VALUES If successful, .Fn ASN1_item_d2i , .Fn ASN1_item_d2i_bio , .Fn ASN1_item_d2i_fp , and .Fn d2i_ASN1_TYPE return a pointer to the decoded ASN.1 value. In addition, if .Fa val_out is not .Dv NULL , the pointer is also written to .Pf * Fa val_out . If an error occurs, .Dv NULL is returned. .Pp .Fn ASN1_item_i2d and .Fn i2d_ASN1_TYPE return the number of bytes written or a negative value if an error occurs. .Pp .Fn ASN1_item_i2d_bio and .Fn ASN1_item_i2d_fp return 1 for success or 0 for failure. .Pp .Fn ASN1_item_dup returns the new .Vt ASN1_VALUE object or .Dv NULL if an error occurs. .Sh EXAMPLES Many type-specific wrapper functions exist. Using those wrappers is recommended in application code because it restores part of the type safety that the low-level interfaces using .Vt ASN1_VALUE lack. .Pp For example, to allocate a buffer and write the DER encoding of an .Vt X509 object into it: .Bd -literal -offset indent X509 *x; unsigned char *buf; int len; buf = NULL; len = i2d_X509(x, &buf); if (len < 0) /* error */ .Ed .Pp Attempt to decode a buffer: .Bd -literal -offset indent X509 *x; unsigned char *buf; const unsigned char *p; int len; /* Set up buf and len to point to the input buffer. */ p = buf; x = d2i_X509(NULL, &p, len); if (x == NULL) /* error */ .Ed .Pp Equivalent technique: .Bd -literal -offset indent X509 *x; unsigned char *buf; const unsigned char *p; int len; /* Set up buf and len to point to the input buffer. */ p = buf; x = NULL; if (d2i_X509(&x, &p, len) == NULL) /* error */ .Ed .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr ASN1_get_object 3 , .Xr ASN1_item_digest 3 , .Xr ASN1_item_new 3 , .Xr ASN1_item_pack 3 , .Xr ASN1_item_sign 3 , .Xr ASN1_item_verify 3 , .Xr ASN1_TYPE_new 3 .Sh HISTORY .Fn d2i_ASN1_TYPE and .Fn i2d_ASN1_TYPE first appeared in SSLeay 0.5.1 and have been available since .Ox 2.4 . .Pp .Fn ASN1_item_d2i , .Fn ASN1_item_d2i_bio , .Fn ASN1_item_d2i_fp , .Fn ASN1_item_i2d , .Fn ASN1_item_i2d_bio , .Fn ASN1_item_i2d_fp , and .Fn ASN1_item_dup first appeared in OpenSSL 0.9.7 and have been available since .Ox 3.2 . .Pp .Fn ASN1_item_print first appeared in OpenSSL 1.0.0 and has been available since .Ox 4.9 . .Sh CAVEATS If the type described by .Fa it fails to match the true type of .Fa val_in or .Pf * Fa val_out , buffer overflows and segmentation faults are likely to occur. For more details about why the type .Vt ASN1_VALUE constitutes dangerous user interface design, see .Xr ASN1_item_new 3 . .Pp The encoded data is in binary form and may contain embedded NUL bytes. Functions such as .Xr strlen 3 will not return the correct length of the encoded data. .Pp While the way that .Pf * Fa der_in and .Pf * Fa der_out are incremented after the operation supports the typical usage patterns of reading or writing one object after another, this behaviour can trap the unwary. .Pp Using a temporary pointer into the buffer is mandatory. A common mistake is to attempt to use a buffer directly as follows: .Bd -literal -offset indent X509 *x; unsigned char *buf; int len; len = i2d_X509(x, NULL); buf = malloc(len); i2d_X509(x, &buf); /* do something with buf[] */ free(buf); .Ed .Pp This code will result in .Va buf apparently containing garbage because it was incremented during .Fn i2d_X509 to point after the data just written. Also .Va buf will no longer contain the pointer allocated by .Xr malloc 3 and the subsequent call to .Xr free 3 is likely to crash. .Pp Another trap to avoid is misuse of the .Fa val_out argument: .Bd -literal -offset indent X509 *x; if (d2i_X509(&x, &p, len) == NULL) /* error */ .Ed .Pp This will probably crash somewhere in .Fn d2i_X509 because .Va x is uninitialized and an attempt will be made to interpret its invalid content as an .Vt X509 object, typically causing a segmentation violation. If .Va x is set to .Dv NULL first, then this will not happen. .Sh BUGS If the .Dq reuse capability is used, a valid object is passed in via .Pf * Fa val_out , and an error occurs, then the object is not freed and may be left in an invalid or inconsistent state. .Pp In some versions of OpenSSL, the .Dq reuse behaviour is broken such that some parts of the reused object may persist if they are not present in the new one. .Pp In many versions of OpenSSL, .Fn ASN1_item_i2d will not return an error if mandatory fields are not initialized due to a programming error. In that case, the encoded structure may contain invalid data and some fields may be missing entirely, such that trying to parse it with .Fn ASN1_item_d2i may fail.