RFC 9421rfcFebruary 2024

HTTP Message Signatures

This document describes a mechanism for creating, encoding, and verifying digital signatures or message authentication codes over components of an HTTP message. This mechanism supports use cases where the full HTTP message may not be known to the signer and where the message may be transformed (e.g., by intermediaries) before reaching the verifier. This document also describes a means for requesting that a signature be applied to a subsequent HTTP message in an ongoing HTTP exchange.

Usage in STET

  • VersionsAll versions

    STET signs requests with `draft-cavage-http-signatures` (`Digest` + `Signature` headers, RSA-SHA256 with a QSealC), the draft this RFC replaced; the Framework notes the successor draft and steers to the JWS profile instead (§3.5.1).

Factual metadata: IETF Datatracker (doc.json) + BibXML.