[openssl-dev] OpenSSL and certain PEM formats

[Sean Leonard]

Hi OpenSSL devs:

I am putting the finishing touches on an Internet-Draft for textual 
encodings of security structures 
<http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-josefsson-pkix-textual-09>, which 
OpenSSL refers to as the "PEM format".

While reviewing OpenSSL's behavior, I noticed a few esoteric labels (see 
pem.h):
#define PEM_STRING_X509_PAIR    "CERTIFICATE PAIR"
   (note, this is supposed to encapsulate a CertificatePair structure 
from X.509)
#define PEM_STRING_SSL_SESSION    "SSL SESSION PARAMETERS"
#define PEM_STRING_PARAMETERS    "PARAMETERS"
   (note, this label does not have any algorithms in it, so I presume it 
refers to some kind of generic parameter structure)

Do these labels have practical use? I have not seen them in the wild. 
Why are they in OpenSSL? Are they ever used for interchange with other 
implementations, or are they specific to OpenSSL's own purposes?

Thanks,

Sean