Key

public interface Key
implements Serializable

Known Indirect Subclasses DHPrivateKey, DHPublicKey, DSAPrivateKey, DSAPublicKey, ECPrivateKey, ECPublicKey, PBEKey, PrivateKey, PublicKey, RSAMultiPrimePrivateCrtKey, RSAPrivateCrtKey, RSAPrivateKey, RSAPublicKey, SecretKey, SecretKeySpec DHPrivateKey The interface to a Diffie-Hellman private key.  DHPublicKey The interface to a Diffie-Hellman public key.  DSAPrivateKey The standard interface to a DSA private key.  DSAPublicKey The interface to a DSA public key.  ECPrivateKey The interface to an elliptic curve (EC) private key.  ECPublicKey The interface to an elliptic curve (EC) public key.  PBEKey The interface to a PBE key.  PrivateKey A private key.  PublicKey A public key.  RSAMultiPrimePrivateCrtKey The interface to an RSA multi-prime private key, as defined in the PKCS#1 v2.1, using the Chinese Remainder Theorem (CRT) information values.  RSAPrivateCrtKey The interface to an RSA private key, as defined in the PKCS#1 standard, using the Chinese Remainder Theorem (CRT) information values.  RSAPrivateKey The interface to an RSA private key.  RSAPublicKey The interface to an RSA public key.  SecretKey A secret (symmetric) key.  SecretKeySpec This class specifies a secret key in a provider-independent fashion.

The Key interface is the top-level interface for all keys. It defines the functionality shared by all key objects. All keys have three characteristics:

• An Algorithm

  This is the key algorithm for that key. The key algorithm is usually an encryption or asymmetric operation algorithm (such as DSA or RSA), which will work with those algorithms and with related algorithms (such as MD5 with RSA, SHA-1 with RSA, Raw DSA, etc.) The name of the algorithm of a key is obtained using the getAlgorithm method.

• An Encoded Form

  This is an external encoded form for the key used when a standard representation of the key is needed outside the Java Virtual Machine, as when transmitting the key to some other party. The key is encoded according to a standard format (such as X.509 SubjectPublicKeyInfo or PKCS#8), and is returned using the getEncoded method. Note: The syntax of the ASN.1 type SubjectPublicKeyInfo is defined as follows:

   SubjectPublicKeyInfo ::= SEQUENCE {
     algorithm AlgorithmIdentifier,
     subjectPublicKey BIT STRING }
  
   AlgorithmIdentifier ::= SEQUENCE {
     algorithm OBJECT IDENTIFIER,
     parameters ANY DEFINED BY algorithm OPTIONAL }
   

  For more information, see RFC 3280: Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate and CRL Profile.

• A Format

  This is the name of the format of the encoded key. It is returned by the getFormat method.

A Key should use KeyRep as its serialized representation. Note that a serialized Key may contain sensitive information which should not be exposed in untrusted environments. See the Security Appendix of the Serialization Specification for more information.

Summary

Constants

long serialVersionUID

Public methods

String getAlgorithm ()

byte[] getEncoded ()

String getFormat ()