Introduction

The IBM® Common Access Card (IBMCAC) provider enables applications to use standard APIs to access the United States Department of Defense Common Access Card.

The IBMCAC provider enables applications to use the standard JCA or JCE APIs to access the certificates stores and key containers on a Common Access Card. The JCA or JCE APIs access the card using the Microsoft Cryptography API (MSCAPI) on the Windows platform. The IBMCAC provider itself does not contain cryptographic functionality, but it does provide a conduit between the Java™ environment and the native cryptographic services on Windows.

By default, the IBMCAC provider is not enabled. To enable the IBMCAC provider, edit the Java security properties file. Add the following line after the IBM cryptographic providers:

security.provider.n=com.ibm.security.capi.IBMCAC

where n is the next integer on the security provider list.

Note: The IBM CAC provider must not be added to the provider list on non-Windows platforms.