TSA in iText 2.1.6

Hi,

I was checking out the new functionality of iText 2.1.6, especially the added TSA support.

In absence of documentation or examples, I took a look at the code to determine how to use the timestamping functionality. However, all I could find about the subject were the interface TSAClient and class TSAClientBouncyCastle. Neither of which are instantiated anywhere, the only references of TSAClient I could find were in one PdfPKCS7#getEncodedPKCS7 method that isn't used by the rest of iText (except for filling the TSAClient argument with null).

When following the examples for PDF signing using external signatures, one of the getEncodedPKCS7() methods does get called outside of iText (for setting the CONTENTS key in the dictionary passed to the final PdfSignatureAppearance#close() invocation). However, When I replace this getEncodedPKCS7() call by the overload that accepts a TSAClient, the resulting array is too large to fit in the allocated buffer.
Checking where this buffer gets allocated leads to an internal invocation of getEncodedPKCS7() (without TSAClient argument).

As far as I can see, being able to use TSA in iText requires me to patch the library (luckily we're using the MPL license) or try to externalize the entire contents of the 'if (cryptoDictionary == null)'-branch from PdfSignatureAppearance#preClose() where the CONTENTS buffer is allocated with the first call (through sigStandard.setSignInfo) to getEncodedPKCS7.
Patching iText to allow specifying a TSAClient externally seems the easiest option to me.

Is this correct? Or is there another way to use TSA in iText?


On a brighter note, once I hacked the library to effectively use a TSAClient, a correct PDF was indeed produced and recognized by Acrobat Reader; so the code does, in fact, work.


Regards,

Bert Vingerhoets - Research & Development
Inventive Designers NV

Phone: +32 3 821 01 70
Fax: +32 3 821 01 71
Email: Bert_Vingerhoets at inventivegroup dot com
http://www.inventivegroup.com/


Inventive Designers' Email Disclaimer:
http://www.inventivedesigners.com/email-disclaimer

--
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.
--



------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
iText-questions mailing list
iText-questions@...
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/itext-questions

Buy the iText book: http://www.1t3xt.com/docs/book.php
Check the site with examples before you ask questions: http://www.1t3xt.info/examples/
You can also search the keywords list: http://1t3xt.info/tutorials/keywords/