Description

Alison-Desktop allows the generation of keys and installation of certificates from an external application. It is designed to be accessed from a browser mainly.

Its services can be accessed through its Alison-SDK library, compatible with any browser (IExplorer 11, Edge, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Brave).

It can be accessed using Alison-SDK. From Alison-Desktop 3.x a new REST interface is available for generation, installation, and testing.

Platforms

Alison-Desktop was tested on the following platforms:

Related Product

AlisonJS SDK

Alison JS allows a developer to integrate Alison Desktop into its pages in an easier way. Go to the AlisonJS SDK documentation.

Alison Wizard

You can obtain the current version of Alison Desktop from ACME Alison Wizard site.

For developers, go to the Alison Desktop documentation.

Available KeyStore List

The following KeyStores are included on any version of Alison-Desktop (+3.x).

Value	Description	Image Added	Image Added	Image Added
WIN-ENH	Native and regular Windows CSP used to generate and store certificates for users.	✔
CSK	Proprietary repository, linked to computer hardware to provide a more secure repository	✔	✔	✔
ETOKEN	Safenet/Gemalto eToken	✔	✔
MTOKEN	Century Longmai mToken	✔	✔
MACOS	Keychain repository of certificates used by OSX		✔
FF-NSS	The repository used by Mozilla Firefox	✔	✔	✔
YUBIKEY	Yubico PIV Required drivers should be downloaded from yubico-piv-tool/Releases/	✔	✔
EPASS	Feitian ePass. Required drivers could be downloaded from: ePass2003_Full_SDK_20210127.rar	✔	✔
ATHEIDP	Athena IDProtect Key	✔	✔
SAFESIGN	SafeSign IC faq-safesign-identity-client	✔	✔
RIJKSPAS	IDEMIA RIJKSPAS SmartCard	✔	✔
GEMP15-1	Gemalto Classic Smart Card	✔	✔	✔
PFX	Repository of the certificate using a PKCS12 file	✔	✔	✔
MEM	Volatile memory keystore	✔	✔	✔

It's also possible to add a new PKCS#11 Keystore just by editing the file keystore.user located in the config directory for each user. This file will include new Keystore entries in each new version of Alison-Desktop.

This is a typical entry to define a new Keystore:

KeyStore Entry

{
    "id": "ETOKEN",
	"status": "enabled",
	"icon": "TOKEN",
	"friendly_name": "Gemalto eToken",
	"capabilities": "SGI",
	"extra_params": "allow_empty_pass",
	"filter_mask": -1,
	"windows": {
		"driver_path_x86": "%WINDRIVER%\\eTPKCS11.dll",
		"driver_path_x64": "%WINDRIVER%\\eTPKCS11.dll"
	},
	"osx": {
		"driver_path": "/usr/local/lib/libeTPkcs11.dylib"
	},
	"linux": {
		"driver_path": "/usr/lib64/libeTPkcs11.so"
	}
}

Alison Desktop is a certificate provider that can be accessed throw an SDK library or its REST interface (available from Alison-Desktop v3.x).

Alison JS

Go to AlisonJS library documentation.

REST interface

Read and Test this interface from Postman.

The following definitions and structures are useful for a better understanding of the interface, library and how to use it.

Some structures share attributes

like:

A complete list of KeyStoreId is available on each distribution of Alison-Desktop or Alison-Server.

Users can add

their own KeyStoreId following the instruction of Alison-

Desktop.

KeyStore is the basic unit of identification of certificate repositories.
Each type of keyStore has a definition that includes a unique identifier, and other attributes used by the library for better representation.

KeyStoreInfo JSON structure

)",
	"capabilities": "string representing capabilities of this keystore to Generate, Import, Export or Sign",
	"profiles" : [ Profile list included inside this keyStore ],
	"status": "keystore status, with the ResultStatus structure described later",
}

Some of these fields are available from Alison-Desktop version 3.1.0+.

.

Each KeyStore has one or more Profiles. This depends on the

Keystore type. Some keyStores only have one profile.

Each profile is identified by its profileName, which may depend on the type of

KeyStore.

Some of the profileName can remain constant over time, as is the case with PFX, CSK, or MACOS, but others can dynamically change between one execution and

another.

Each profile contains certificates installed within it. By looking at the attributes of a profile, you can find how many certificates you have installed (-1 represents that the attribute has not been evaluated), and how many of them are dummy certificate installations (temporarily created to keep the private key, but not functional).

The information contained in a KeyStore is represented by a JSON structure called KeyStoreInfo. The structure has the following information:

Profile JSON information

It's used to indicate a unique KeyStore and a profile into it.

Some methods, like the migration of

certificates between

Keystores, use a KeyStoreSelector to indicate the target

Keystore where to move the certificate

.

KeyStore Selector Structure

This structure is used to reference a unique certificate managed by Alison-Desktop or Alison-Server.

Certificate Selector Structure

A WebCertificate is the representation of a certificate that is stored in a

Keystore.

It contains all the certificate information

such as subject, issuer, and thumbprint.

A full description of this structure is located in Debbie's documentation.

WebCertificate Structure

This structure is used to represent the status of several elements (

Keystore, profile, etc).

Result Status Structure

ErrorCode responses

Error code responses are returned with the following structure:

ErrorCode response structure

{
	"code": 20611,
	"message": "Token is not present or is empty"
}

You can download the last published version of Alison-Desktop by accessing ACME Alison Wizard. 

You also can access the current development Alison-Desktop version for each platform.

Image Added	Image Added	Image Added
Alison-Desktop Windows Installer (x64) v3.4.0	Alison-Desktop MacOS Installer v3.4.0	Alison-Desktop Ubuntu Installer v3.4.0 (Debian) Alison-Desktop CentOS Installer v3.4.0 (RHEL)