OT: SSL certificate chain problems

Victor Duchovni Victor.Duchovni at MorganStanley.com
Fri Jan 26 11:42:58 EST 2007


On Fri, Jan 26, 2007 at 07:06:00PM +1300, Peter Gutmann wrote:

> Victor Duchovni <Victor.Duchovni at MorganStanley.com> writes:
> 
> >Generally it is enough for a TLS server or client to present its own
> >certificate and all *intermediate* CA certificates, sending the root CA cert
> >is optional, because if the verifying system trusts the root CA in question,
> >it has a local copy of that root CA cert. 
> 
> In some cases it may be useful to send the entire chain, one such being when a
> CA re-issues its root with a new expiry date, as Verisign did when its roots
> expired in December 1999.  The old root can be used to verify the new root.

Wouldn't the old root also (until it actually expires) verify any
certificates signed by the new root? If so, why does a server need to
send the new root? So long as the recipient has either the new or the
old root, the chain will be valid. Is the problem case when the verifier
has both roots, and the older of the two has expired?

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