Beyond Linux® From Scratch (systemd Edition) - Version 11.0

Chapter 4. Security

p11-kit-0.24.0

Introduction to p11-kit

The p11-kit package provides a way to load and enumerate PKCS #11 (a Cryptographic Token Interface Standard) modules.

This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-11.0 platform.

Package Information

p11-kit Dependencies

Recommended

libtasn1-4.17.0 and make-ca-1.7 (runtime)

Optional

GTK-Doc-1.33.2, libxslt-1.1.34, and NSS-3.69 (runtime)

User Notes: https://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/p11-kit

Installation of p11-kit

Prepare the distribution specific anchor hook: 

sed '20,$ d' -i trust/trust-extract-compat &&
cat >> trust/trust-extract-compat << "EOF"
# Copy existing anchor modifications to /etc/ssl/local
/usr/libexec/make-ca/copy-trust-modifications

# Generate a new trust store
/usr/sbin/make-ca -f -g
EOF

Install p11-kit by running the following commands: 

mkdir p11-build &&
cd    p11-build &&

meson --prefix=/usr       \
      --buildtype=release \
      -Dtrust_paths=/etc/pki/anchors &&
ninja

To test the results, issue: ninja test.

Now, as the root user: 

ninja install &&
ln -sfv /usr/libexec/p11-kit/trust-extract-compat \
        /usr/bin/update-ca-certificates

Command Explanations

--buildtype=release: Specify a buildtype suitable for stable releases of the package, as the default may produce unoptimized binaries.

-Dtrust_paths=/etc/pki/anchors: this switch sets the location of trusted certificates used by libp11-kit.so.

-Dhash_impl=freebl: Use this switch if you want to use the Freebl library from NSS for SHA1 and MD5 hashing.

-Dgtk_doc=true: Use this switch if you have installed GTK-Doc-1.33.2 and libxslt-1.1.34 and wish to rebuild the documentation and generate manual pages.

Configuring p11-kit

The p11-kit trust module (/usr/lib/pkcs11/p11-kit-trust.so) can be used as a drop-in replacement for /usr/lib/libnssckbi.so to transparently make the system CAs available to NSS aware applications, rather than the static list provided by /usr/lib/libnssckbi.so. As the root user, execute the following commands: 

ln -sfv ./pkcs11/p11-kit-trust.so /usr/lib/libnssckbi.so

Contents

Installed Programs: p11-kit, trust, and update-ca-certificates
Installed Libraries: libp11-kit.so and p11-kit-proxy.so
Installed Directories: /etc/pkcs11, /usr/include/p11-kit-1, /usr/lib/pkcs11, /usr/libexec/p11-kit, /usr/share/gtk-doc/html/p11-kit, and /usr/share/p11-kit

Short Descriptions

p11-kit

is a command line tool that can be used to perform operations on PKCS#11 modules configured on the system

trust

is a command line tool to examine and modify the shared trust policy store

update-ca-certificates

is a command line tool to both extract local certificates from an updated anchor store, and regenerate all anchors and certificate stores on the system. This is done unconditionally on BLFS using the --force and --get flags to make-ca and should likely not be used for automated updates

libp11-kit.so

contains functions used to coordinate initialization and finalization of any PKCS#11 module

p11-kit-proxy.so

is the PKCS#11 proxy module

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