ACTION-355: Describe algorithms commonly used to create display names of certificates

Hello all,

What Opera uses when presenting the short form of a name, in the  
certificate preferences and certificate warning dialogs are (after fixing  
what looks like an old mistake at the 3rd level, so this is what will be  
in 9.5), in order of priority.

   1. Common Name (CN)
   2. Organizational Unit (OU), Location (L)
   3. Organizational Name (O)

AFAIK, Most/all CAs use the Common Name, so what will be presented in most  
cases is the first alternative.

Additionally, in the rootstore manager view it is possible to hardcode (by  
Opera) a "friendly" name for the CA that will be displayed instead of the  
above.

We do not use the hardcoded name for presentation in certificate warning  
dialogs (certainly it is possible).

In the details view all items in the name are listed as Common Name, O,  
OU, L, State/province, Country, and then anything else in the order they  
appear in the DN.

It is certainly possible to use a different order of preference for the  
above list. It is possible that other other clients are doing that.

OpenSSL can also present the name in a "oneline" format which will present  
each field of the name in the sequence they are listed in the  
Distinguished Name structure.



-- 
Sincerely,
Yngve N. Pettersen
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Senior Developer		                 Email: yngve@opera.com
Opera Software ASA                   http://www.opera.com/
Phone:  +47 24 16 42 60              Fax:    +47 24 16 40 01
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Received on Wednesday, 12 December 2007 15:51:14 UTC