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X509Chain Class

[This documentation is for preview only, and is subject to change in later releases. Blank topics are included as placeholders.]

Represents a chain-building engine for X509Certificate2 certificates.

System.Object
  System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Chain

Namespace:  System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates
Assembly:  System (in System.dll)
public class X509Chain

The X509Chain type exposes the following members.

  Name Description
Public method X509Chain() Initializes a new instance of the X509Chain class.
Public method X509Chain(Boolean) Initializes a new instance of the X509Chain class specifying a value that indicates whether the machine context should be used.
Public method X509Chain(IntPtr) Initializes a new instance of the X509Chain class using an IntPtr handle to an X.509 chain.
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  Name Description
Public property ChainContext Gets a handle to an X.509 chain.
Public property ChainElements Gets a collection of X509ChainElement objects.
Public property ChainPolicy Gets or sets the X509ChainPolicy to use when building an X.509 certificate chain.
Public property ChainStatus Gets the status of each element in an X509Chain object.
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  Name Description
Public method Build Builds an X.509 chain using the policy specified in X509ChainPolicy.
Public method Static member Create Creates an X509Chain object after querying for the mapping defined in the CryptoConfig file, and maps the chain to that mapping.
Public method Equals(Object) Determines whether the specified Object is equal to the current Object. (Inherited from Object.)
Protected method Finalize Allows an object to try to free resources and perform other cleanup operations before it is reclaimed by garbage collection. (Inherited from Object.)
Public method GetHashCode Serves as a hash function for a particular type. (Inherited from Object.)
Public method GetType Gets the Type of the current instance. (Inherited from Object.)
Protected method MemberwiseClone Creates a shallow copy of the current Object. (Inherited from Object.)
Public method Reset Clears the current X509Chain object.
Public method ToString Returns a string that represents the current object. (Inherited from Object.)
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The X509Chain object has a global error status called ChainStatus that should be used for certificate validation. The rules governing certificate validation are complex, and it is easy to oversimplify the validation logic by ignoring the error status of one or more of the elements involved. The global error status takes into consideration the status of each element in the chain.

The following code example opens the current user's personal certificate store, allows you to select a certificate, then writes certificate and certificate chain information to the console. The output depends on the certificate you select.


using System;
using System.Security.Cryptography;
using System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates;
using System.IO;

class TestX509Chain
{
	static void Main(string[] args)
	{
		//Create new X509 store from local certificate store.
		X509Store store = new X509Store("MY", StoreLocation.CurrentUser);
		store.Open(OpenFlags.OpenExistingOnly | OpenFlags.ReadWrite);

		//Output store information.
		Console.WriteLine ("Store Information");
		Console.WriteLine ("Number of certificates in the store: {0}", store.Certificates.Count);
		Console.WriteLine ("Store location: {0}", store.Location);
		Console.WriteLine ("Store name: {0} {1}", store.Name, Environment.NewLine);
	
		//Put certificates from the store into a collection so user can select one.
		X509Certificate2Collection fcollection = (X509Certificate2Collection)store.Certificates;
		X509Certificate2Collection collection = X509Certificate2UI.SelectFromCollection(fcollection, "Select an X509 Certificate", "Choose a certificate to examine.", X509SelectionFlag.SingleSelection);
		X509Certificate2 certificate = collection[0];
		X509Certificate2UI.DisplayCertificate(certificate);
		//Output chain information of the selected certificate.
		X509Chain ch = new X509Chain();
		ch.Build (certificate);
		Console.WriteLine ("Chain Information");
		ch.ChainPolicy.RevocationMode = X509RevocationMode.Online;
		Console.WriteLine ("Chain revocation flag: {0}", ch.ChainPolicy.RevocationFlag);
		Console.WriteLine ("Chain revocation mode: {0}", ch.ChainPolicy.RevocationMode);
		Console.WriteLine ("Chain verification flag: {0}", ch.ChainPolicy.VerificationFlags);
		Console.WriteLine ("Chain verification time: {0}", ch.ChainPolicy.VerificationTime);
		Console.WriteLine ("Chain status length: {0}", ch.ChainStatus.Length);
		Console.WriteLine ("Chain application policy count: {0}", ch.ChainPolicy.ApplicationPolicy.Count);
		Console.WriteLine ("Chain certificate policy count: {0} {1}", ch.ChainPolicy.CertificatePolicy.Count, Environment.NewLine);
		//Output chain element information.
		Console.WriteLine ("Chain Element Information");
		Console.WriteLine ("Number of chain elements: {0}", ch.ChainElements.Count);
		Console.WriteLine ("Chain elements synchronized? {0} {1}", ch.ChainElements.IsSynchronized, Environment.NewLine);
	
		foreach (X509ChainElement element in ch.ChainElements)
		{
			Console.WriteLine ("Element issuer name: {0}", element.Certificate.Issuer);
			Console.WriteLine ("Element certificate valid until: {0}", element.Certificate.NotAfter);
			Console.WriteLine ("Element certificate is valid: {0}", element.Certificate.Verify ());
			Console.WriteLine ("Element error status length: {0}", element.ChainElementStatus.Length);
			Console.WriteLine ("Element information: {0}", element.Information);
			Console.WriteLine ("Number of element extensions: {0}{1}", element.Certificate.Extensions.Count, Environment.NewLine);

			if (ch.ChainStatus.Length > 1)
			{
				for (int index = 0; index < element.ChainElementStatus.Length; index++)
				{
					Console.WriteLine (element.ChainElementStatus[index].Status);
					Console.WriteLine (element.ChainElementStatus[index].StatusInformation);
				}
			}
		}
		store.Close();
	}
}


.NET Framework

Supported in: 4.5, 4, 3.5, 3.0, 2.0

.NET Framework Client Profile

Supported in: 4, 3.5 SP1

Windows 8 Consumer Preview, Windows Server 8 Beta, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 SP2, Windows Server 2008 R2 (Server Core Role supported with SP1 or later; Itanium not supported)

The .NET Framework does not support all versions of every platform. For a list of the supported versions, see .NET Framework System Requirements.

Any public static (Shared in Visual Basic) members of this type are thread safe. Any instance members are not guaranteed to be thread safe.
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