website/validation-agent.mdwn



[[!meta title="Monkeysphere Validation Agent"]]
Monkeysphere Validation Agent
The Monkeysphere Validation Agent offers a local service for systems
to validate certificates (both X.509 and OpenPGP) and other public
keys in their proper contexts.
Among other reasons, having a validation agent is a good thing
because:

Multiple tools can rely on the same PKI (e.g. the user's web browser
and the user's ssh client).
A single validation agent can present a consistent UI to the user
(when used in an end-user context), or provide a unified trust model
to various services (when used in a server-side context).
Authentication/certificate validation code can potentially be
isolated to a protected environment.

Implementations
There are currently two implementations of the validation agent:

msva-perl
msva-ruby

Protocol
The Monkeysphere Validation Agent protocol (MSVA) is defined as a
minimal HTTP server with JSON-encapsulated requests and responses.
You may want to read more protocol details.