libksi

Guardtime Keyless Signature Infrastructure (KSI) is an industrial scale blockchain platform that cryptographically ensures data integrity and proves time of existence. Its keyless signatures, based on hash chains, link data to global calendar blockchain. The checkpoints of the blockchain, published in newspapers and electronic media, enable long term integrity of any digital asset without the need to trust any system. There are many applications for KSI, a classical example is signing of any type of logs - system logs, financial transactions, call records, etc. For more, see https://guardtime.com.

The libksi is a software development kit for developers who want to integrate KSI with their C/C++ based applications and systems. It provides an API for all KSI functionality, including the core functions - signing of data, extending and verifying the signatures.

Installation

To build the libksi, you need to have the following SW components installed:

1. A network provider
2. A cryptography provider

The following network providers are supported, choose one:

• libcurl (recommended)
• Windows native WinINet
• Windows native WinHTTP

The following cryptography providers are supported, choose one:

• OpenSSL (recommended)
• Windows native CryptoAPI

For building under Windows you need the Windows SDK.

To use libksi in your C/C++ project, link it against the libksi binary and your chosen network and cryptography providers.

If you do not want to build your own binaries, you can get the latest stable release from the Guardtime repository. To set up the repository, save this repo file in your repositories directory (e.g. /etc/yum.repos.d/): http://download.guardtime.com/ksi/configuration/guardtime.el6.repo

Known Limitations

• Curl

The libcurl latest version 7.29.0-42 used in CentOS/RHEL 7 is not signal-proof. If your application is using signals in combination with libksi basic network service interface, network requests can fail. In this case libksi request call will return KSI_NETWORK_ERROR.

• WinINet

WinINet maximum connections per server is limited to a value of 128. In case the asynchronous interface is used, it is advised to set maximum parallel running request count (see KSI_ASYNC_OPT_REQUEST_CACHE_SIZE) to a value not greater than 128. Otherwise, the requests could be timed out.

• Windows

Build combination of DLL=dll and RTL=MT(d) is not supported.

Proxy Configuration

To use a proxy, you need to configure the proxy on your operating system according to the chosen network client.

• Curl

Set the system environment variable: http_proxy=user:pass@server:port

In the Windows control panel:

1. Find the 'System' page and select 'Advanced system settings'
2. Select 'Environment Variables...'
3. Select 'New...' to create a new system variable
4. Enter http_proxy in the name field and and proxy configuration (see above) in the value field.

In Linux add the system variable to /etc/bashrc:

	export http_proxy=user:pass@server:port

• WinHTTP

Windows command line:

	netsh winhttp set proxy server:port

Configuring authentication is not supported by the netsh utility.

• WinINet

In the Windows control panel:

1. Find the 'Internet Options' page and select the 'Connections' tab.
2. Select 'LAN settings' and enable proxy configuration by ticking the 'Use a proxy ..' checkbox
3. Enter the address and port of your proxy server in the corresponding fields.

Alternatively in the Windows registry, modify the 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings' key:

1. Set ProxyEnable to 1
2. Set ProxyServer to server:port

Configuring authentication is not supported by the Windows control panel and registry.

PDU Version

libksi supports two different PDU versions for aggregation and extending messages. By default, PDU version 1 is used both for aggregation and extending. If the configured aggregator or extender does not support the default PDU version, the PDU version can be changed in one of the following ways:

1. Define a macro that will be used when building the libksi. The macro name must be KSI_AGGREGATION_PDU_VERSION or KSI_EXTENDING_PDU_VERSION. Possible values are KSI_PDU_VERSION_1 or KSI_PDU_VERSION_2.

An example of defining the macro in WinBuild64.bat:

	nmake [macros...] KSI_AGGREGATION_PDU_VERSION=KSI_PDU_VERSION_2 [targets...]

An example of defining the macro in configure.ac:

	AC_MSG_NOTICE([Setting extending PDU version])
	AC_DEFINE(KSI_EXTENDING_PDU_VERSION, KSI_PDU_VERSION_2, [Setting extending PDU version to 2.])

2. Configure the PDU versions in your application by using the KSI_CTX_setFlag() interface:

	KSI_CTX_setFlag(ksi, KSI_CTX_FLAG_AGGR_PDU_VER, (void*)KSI_PDU_VERSION_2);
	KSI_CTX_setFlag(ksi, KSI_CTX_FLAG_EXT_PDU_VER, (void*)KSI_PDU_VERSION_2);

Usage

In order to get trial access to the KSI platform, go to https://guardtime.com/blockchain-developers.

A simple example how to sign a document and verify the signature:

	#include <ksi/ksi.h>
	/* Set up KSI context and aggregator for signing. */
	KSI_CTX *ksi = NULL;		/* Must be freed at the end. */
	KSI_CTX_new(&ksi);			/* Must be initialized only once per thread. */
	KSI_CTX_setAggregator(ksi, "http://signingservice.somehost:1234", "user", "key");

	/* Set up extender and publications file for verification. */
	KSI_PublicationsFile *pubFile = NULL;	/* Must be freed. */
	KSI_CTX_setExtender(ksi, "http://signingservice.somehost:1234", "user", "key");
	KSI_PublicationsFile_fromFile(ksi, KSI_PUBLICATIONS_FILE, &pubFile);
	KSI_CTX_setPublicationsFile(ksi, pubFile);

	/* Calculate hash of document, sign the hash and verify the signature. */
	int res;
	KSI_DataHash *hsh = NULL;	/* Must be freed. */
	KSI_Signature *sig = NULL;	/* Must be freed. */
	KSI_DataHash_create(ksi, data, data_len, &hsh);
	KSI_createSignature(ksi, hsh, &sig);
	res = KSI_verifySignature(ksi, sig);

The API full reference is available here http://guardtime.github.io/libksi/.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md file.

License

See license.txt file.

Dependencies

Dependency	Version	License type	Source	Notes
OpenSSL	Latest stable for target platform	BSD	https://www.openssl.org/	This product includes cryptographic software written by Eric Young ([email protected]). This product includes software written by Tim Hudson ([email protected]).
libcurl	Latest stable for target platform	MIT/X	https://github.com/bagder/curl
Windows CryptoAPI				Can be used as alternative to OpenSSL. Build time option.
Windows WinINet				Can be used as alternative to libcurl. Build time option.
Windows WinHTTP				Can be used as alternative to libcurl. Build time option.
CuTest	1.5	Zlib		Required only for testing.
Nginx	n/a	MIT		Modified version of code based on src/http/ngx_http_parse.c from NGINX embedded in KSI code base.

Compatibility

OS / Platform	Compatibility
CentOS / RHEL 6 and 7, x86_64 architecture	Fully compatible and tested.
Debian, ...	Compatible but not tested on a regular basis.
OS X	Compatible but not tested on a regular basis.
Windows 7, 8, 10	Compatible but not tested on a regular basis.