Difference between revisions of "PKI Roadmap"

Revision as of 00:31, 16 June 2007

The Fedora Certificate System owes its creation from a long and distinguished genealogy of proprietary products, and the various talented men and women who designed, developed, tested, supported, and marketed them. This page is dedicated to the history of those products that inspired this project.

History

[01/24/1997] Netscape Certificate Server 1.0

The Certificate System project was created at Netscape Communications when a need arose to generate certificates as a better means of authentication rather than using simple name/password based basic authentication. Released on January 24, 1997, version 1.0 of the Netscape Certificate Server was written in a combination of C, and C++, and used an Informix database for storage of the certificates. The release consisted solely of a Certificate Authority, and was made available on a number of different hardware platforms.

• Project Name
  • Species
• Releases
  • [12/19/1996] Netscape Certificate Server 1.0 Preview Release Beta 3
  • [01/24/1997] Netscape Certificate Server 1.0
  • [05/22/1997] Netscape Certificate Server 1.0.1
  • [05/22/1997] Netscape Certificate Server 1.0.2
  • [05/22/1997] Netscape Certificate Server 1.0.3
  • [06/26/1998] Netscape Certificate Server 1.0 (SP 1)
• Features
  • An X.509 v3 compliant Certificate Authority
  • Support for UID and MAIL attributes
  • Support for multiple Organization Unit (OU) attributes within any Distinguished Name (DN)
  • Extensible to include virtually any X.509 v3 extension
  • Supports automatic certificate issuance through Virtual Graphics Interface (VGI)
• Platforms

Platform	1.0 Preview Release Beta 3	1.0	1.0.1	1.0.2	1.0.3	1.0 (SP 1)
Digital UNIX 3.2C		X	X	X	X	X
Digital UNIX 4.0B		X	X	X	X	X
HP-UX 10.10		X	X	X	X	X
IBM AIX 4.1.4		X	X	X	X	X
IBM AIX 4.2		X	X	X	X	X
IRIX 5.3	X	X	X	X	X	X
IRIX 6.2	X	X	X	X	X	X
Solaris 2.4	X	X	X	X	X	X
Solaris 2.5.1	X	X	X	X	X	X
Windows NT 4.0 (alpha)		X	X	X	X
Windows NT 3.51 (intel)	X	X	X	X	X	X
Windows NT 4.0 (intel)	X	X	X	X	X	X

[06/24/1999] Netscape Certificate Management System 4.1

Shortly thereafter, a group of Netscape engineers decided to create a more robust framework consisting of a plug-in architecture. Released on June 24, 1999, Netscape Certificate Management System was written primarily in Java (with small portions in C and C++), and would replace the proprietary third-party Informix Database with the successful Netscape Directory Server. This release consisted of three subsystems, a Certificate Authority, a Data Recovery Manager, and a Registration Authority.

• Project Name
  • Columbo
• Releases
  • [03/08/1999] Netscape Certificate Management System 4.0 Beta 2a
  • [06/24/1999] Netscape Certificate Management System 4.1
  • [12/12/1999] Netscape Certificate Management System 4.1 (SP 1)
• Features

• Platforms

Platform	4.0 Beta 2a	4.1	4.1 (SP 1)
Solaris 2.5.1	X	X	X
Solaris 2.6	X	X	X
Windows NT 4.0 (SP 4 using NTFS)	X	X

[08/02/2000] Netscape/iPlanet Certificate Management System 4.2

In 1999, AOL acquired Netscape and formed the iPlanet Alliance with Sun to jointly develop Netscape servers. From 1999 to 2001, employees of Netscape and Sun worked together to create the next two versions of the Certificate Management System, and on August 2, 2000, Netscape/iPlanet Certificate Management System 4.2 was released.

• Project Name
  • Columbo
• Releases
  • [08/02/2000] Netscape Certificate Management System 4.2
  • [10/18/2000] Netscape Certificate Management System 4.2 (SP 1)
  • [05/29/2002] Netscape Certificate Management System 4.2 (SP 1a)
• Features
• Platforms

[03/29/2001] iPlanet Certificate Management System 4.2 (SP 2)

Referred to internally as Certificate Management System 4.3, on March 29, 2001, iPlanet Certificate Management System 4.2 (SP 2) added a fourth subsystem, the Online Certificate Status Protocol Manager (to replace an embedded proprietary third-party OCSP Responder from Valicert).

• Project Name
  • Columbo
• Releases
• Features
• Platforms

[10/10/2001] Netscape Certificate Management System 4.5

The iPlanet alliance officially ended in October 2001, and Sun and Netscape forked the code base. AOL formed a new division entitled Strategic Business Solutions, and on October 10, 2001, a re-branded Netscape Certificate Management System 4.5 was released, and the number of available hardware platforms was significantly reduced.

• Project Name
  • Columbo
• Releases
• Features
• Platforms

[03/28/2002] Netscape Certificate Management System 6.0

On March 28, 2002, Netscape Certificate Management System 6.0 was released which replaced its own internally developed web server with the more robust Netscape Enterprise Server.

• Project Name
  • Bobby (the name of a developer's pet dog)
• Releases
• Features
• Platforms

[05/28/2002] Netscape Certificate Management System 6.01

Although technically considered a service pack of Netscape Certificate Management System 6.0, on May 28, 2002, Netscape Certificate Management System 6.01 was released which consisted of the first officially recognized and supported version of the server on the Linux operating system available on Red Hat Advanced Server 2.1.

• Project Name
  • Scooby-Doo
• Releases
• Features
• Platforms

[06/03/2002] Sun^TM ONE Certificate Server 4.7

On June 3, 2002, members of the Sun Certificate Management System team released their final major point release composed from the Sun code base, Sun^TM ONE Certificate Server 4.7.

• Project Name
  • Columbo
• Releases
  • [06/03/2002] Sun^TM ONE Certificate Server 4.7
  • [10/15/2002] Sun^TM ONE Certificate Server 4.7 (SP 1)
• Features
• Platforms

[01/31/2003] Netscape Certificate Management System 6.1

On January 31, 2003, Netscape Certificate System 6.1 was released, and on March 12, 2003, Netscape Certificate System 6.1 (SP 1) was the first release of the product to be Common Criteria Certified, an acknowledgment from the United States government that this product was approved for "global" acceptance.

• Project Name
  • Scooby-Doo
• Releases
  • [09/09/2002] Netscape Certificate Management System 6.1 Preview Drop (Beta 1)
  • [11/12/2002] Netscape Certificate Management System 6.1 Preview Drop (Beta 2)
  • [01/31/2003] Netscape Certificate Management System 6.1
  • [03/12/2003] Netscape Certificate Management System 6.1 (SP 1)
  • [05/05/2003] Netscape Certificate Management System 6.1 (SP 2)
  • [08/11/2003] Netscape Certificate Management System 6.1 (SP 3)
  • [08/20/2003] Netscape Certificate Management System 6.1 (SP 3.1)
  • [11/18/2003] Netscape Certificate Management System 6.1 (SP 4)
• Features
• Platforms

[06/17/2003] Netscape Certificate Management System 6.2

On June 17, 2003, Netscape Certificate Management System 6.2 was released which included high-availability support compliments of the included Netscape Directory Server.

• Releases

[06/17/2003] Netscape Certificate Management System 6.2 [06/17/2003] Netscape Certificate Management System 6.2 (SP 1)

• Features
• Platforms

[11/30/2004] Netscape Certificate Management System 7.0

On November 30, 2004, Netscape Certificate System 7.0 was released, and became the final version released by AOL. This release dropped the original Registration Authority, and added the initial support for smartcard management by means of two new server subsystems - the Token Key Service, and the Token Processing Subsystem. Interaction with this new feature was provided via a new client entitled the Enterprise Security Client.

• Releases
• Features
• Platforms

[05/27/2004] Red Hat Certificate System 7.1

On December 8, 2004, several Netscape technologies were acquired by Red Hat, including the Netscape Certificate Management System and the Netscape Directory Server. On May 27, 2005, the Netscape Certificate Management System was officially re-dubbed the Red Hat Certificate System, and released to the world on the 32-bit Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 AS/ES, the 32-bit Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 AS/ES, and the 32-bit sparc and 64-bit sparcv9 Solaris 9 platforms.

• Releases
• Features
• Platforms

[02/05/2007] Red Hat Certificate System 7.2

On February 5, 2007, Red Hat Certificate System 7.2 was released, and was changed significantly from being one huge monolithic package of various embedded servers and subsystems into numerous modular independent RPMs/PKGs. While still required for operation, the Red Hat Directory Server was removed as an embedded server and required to be obtained as a separate downloadable entity, and the reliance upon the Netscape Enterprise Security web server was replaced by version 2.0 of the Apache web server, and version 5.5 of the Tomcat web server. This server was made available on both 32-bit and 64-bit Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 AS/ES, and 64-bit sparcv9 Solaris 9 platforms.

• Releases
• Features
• Platforms

[05/11/2007] Red Hat Certificate System 7.3

On May 11, 2007, Red Hat Certificate System 7.3 was released, and included a newly re-written light-weight Registration Authority.

• Releases
• Features
• Platforms

Initial Release

Next Steps

Contributors