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Exchanging Files

If you want to electronically send an important document, such as a contract, to someone else, it is a good idea to digitally "sign" the document, so that the recipient has a way of checking that the document indeed came from you and was not altered in transit.

This lesson illustrates the use of security-related tools for the exchange of an important document, in this case a contract. You first pretend that you are the contract sender, Stan Smith. This lesson shows the steps Stan would use to put the contract in a JAR file, sign it, and export the public key certificate for the public key corresponding to the private key used to sign the JAR file.

Then you pretend that you are Ruth, who has received the signed JAR file and the certificate. You'll use keytool to import the certificate into Ruth's keystore in an entry aliased by stan, and the jarsigner tool to verify the signature.

For further information about digital signatures, certificates, keystores, and the tools, see the API and Tools Use for Secure Code and File Exchanges(in the Java Security 1.2 trail) lesson.


Note: The commands executed in this lesson are assumed to all be done from within the same directory.

Here are the steps:


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