Is there an easier way to sign an XML document in Java?

Question

I\'m trying to digitally sign an XML document using Java. I\'ve got an implementation working with some references I\'ve found that use various implementations in the javax.xml.

Answer 1

I looked at all of the options for signing XML files and decided to go with a non-standard approach. The standards were all way too verbose. Also, I didn't need compatibility with the standards---I just needed signatures on a block of XML.

Probably the easiest way to "sign" a block of XML is to use GPG with a detached signature.

Answer 2

Have look at Apache XML Security. To use the package to generate and verify a signature, checkout the samples in src_samples/org/apache/xml/security/samples/signature/.

Answer 3

Building from the Apache Santuario CreateSignature example, the shortest thing I could come up with is this. Without the main() and its accompanying output(), it's 20 lines

import java.io.*;
import java.security.Key;
import java.security.KeyStore;
import java.security.cert.X509Certificate;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;

import org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils;
import org.apache.xml.security.Init;
import org.apache.xml.security.c14n.Canonicalizer;
import org.apache.xml.security.signature.XMLSignature;
import org.apache.xml.security.transforms.Transforms;
import org.apache.xml.security.utils.Constants;
import org.apache.xml.security.utils.ElementProxy;
import org.w3c.dom.Document;

public class CreateSignature {

    private static final String PRIVATE_KEY_ALIAS = "test-alias";
    private static final String PRIVATE_KEY_PASS = "test";
    private static final String KEY_STORE_PASS = "test";
    private static final String KEY_STORE_TYPE = "JKS";

    public static void main(String... unused) throws Exception {
        final InputStream fileInputStream = new FileInputStream("test.xml");
        try {
            output(signFile(fileInputStream, new File("keystore.jks")), "signed-test.xml");
        }
        finally {
            IOUtils.closeQuietly(fileInputStream);
        }
    }

    public static ByteArrayOutputStream signFile(InputStream xmlFile, File privateKeyFile) throws Exception {
        final Document doc = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance().newDocumentBuilder().parse(xmlFile);
        Init.init();
        ElementProxy.setDefaultPrefix(Constants.SignatureSpecNS, "");
        final KeyStore keyStore = loadKeyStore(privateKeyFile);
        final XMLSignature sig = new XMLSignature(doc, null, XMLSignature.ALGO_ID_SIGNATURE_RSA);
        final Transforms transforms = new Transforms(doc);
        transforms.addTransform(Transforms.TRANSFORM_ENVELOPED_SIGNATURE);
        sig.addDocument("", transforms, Constants.ALGO_ID_DIGEST_SHA1);
        final Key privateKey = keyStore.getKey(PRIVATE_KEY_ALIAS, PRIVATE_KEY_PASS.toCharArray());
        final X509Certificate cert = (X509Certificate)keyStore.getCertificate(PRIVATE_KEY_ALIAS);
        sig.addKeyInfo(cert);
        sig.addKeyInfo(cert.getPublicKey());
        sig.sign(privateKey);
        doc.getDocumentElement().appendChild(sig.getElement());
        final ByteArrayOutputStream outputStream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
        outputStream.write(Canonicalizer.getInstance(Canonicalizer.ALGO_ID_C14N_WITH_COMMENTS).canonicalizeSubtree(doc));
        return outputStream;
    }

    private static KeyStore loadKeyStore(File privateKeyFile) throws Exception {
        final InputStream fileInputStream = new FileInputStream(privateKeyFile);
        try {
            final KeyStore keyStore = KeyStore.getInstance(KEY_STORE_TYPE);
            keyStore.load(fileInputStream, KEY_STORE_PASS.toCharArray());
            return keyStore;
        }
        finally {
            IOUtils.closeQuietly(fileInputStream);
        }
    }

    private static void output(ByteArrayOutputStream signedOutputStream, String fileName) throws IOException {
        final OutputStream fileOutputStream = new FileOutputStream(fileName);
        try {
            fileOutputStream.write(signedOutputStream.toByteArray());
            fileOutputStream.flush();
        }
        finally {
            IOUtils.closeQuietly(fileOutputStream);
        }
    }
}