US 7,493,486 B1
Method and apparatus for supporting cryptographic-related activities in a public key infrastructure
Stuart J. Jacobs, Hudson, Mass. (US); Francis Leo Mannix, Jr., Newton, Mass. (US); Thomas William Christoffel, Concord, Mass. (US); and Scott Andrew Belgard, Randolph, Mass. (US)
Assigned to Verizon Laboratories, Inc., Waltham, Mass. (US)
Filed on Jun. 09, 2000, as Appl. No. 9/591,708.
Int. Cl. H04L 9/00 (2006.01)
U.S. Cl. 713—153  [726/16; 380/30] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. In a node operative within a network of a plurality of nodes, a method for performing cryptographic-related functions, comprising:
executing an application program in a user space at the node;
receiving an input requiring cryptographic-related processing;
generating a message in the node via the application program based on the input, the message being the same as one of a predefined set of messages stored in the node and being processed by one of a plurality of cryptographic processing components located in a kernel space within the node, each one of said messages being associated with a respective one of said cryptographic-related functions;
transmitting the message to one of a socket handler and a call handler in kernel space at the node to obtain a transmitted message;
forwarding the transmitted message to a request handler at the node which generates a function call to the cryptographic processing component appropriate for the transmitted message; and
performing the cryptographic-related processing by the cryptographic processing component appropriate for the transmitted message.