XAdES .NET Project Documentation

What is XAdES .NET Project?

XAdES .NET Project is an effort to provide support for Advanced Xml Signature inside the .NET Platform. XAdES stands for XML Advanced Electronic Signatures, and is a extension for the IETF/W3CXML-Signature Syntax and Processing specification that includes support for non-repudiation. The standards defined in XAdES aim to generate advanced electronic signatures that remain valid over long periods, are compliant with the European Directive EU-DIR-ESIG and incorporate additional useful information in common use cases (like indication of the commitment got by the signature production).

XAdES .NET Project aims to create a library that provides the developer the ability to create and verify XMLDSIG and XAdES signatures in an easy way. We'll try to make the process transparent and simple, so the developer can focus in the uses of the signatures, removing the complexity of their formats and inner morphologies.

Current version

The current version of the library is 0.2. It includes the API needed to sign and verify XMLDSIG files and documents (.NET XmlDocument objects).

Features

• XMLDSIG API completed.
• Timestamp included, with own namespace and XMLDSIG DateTime format.
• Batch Signature.
• NUnit Tests included.
• Xml Properties allowed.
• Capability to recover Xml document from signature.
• Capability to recover signer certificate from signature.
• Optimization of Xml processing

You can download this version here.
You can see here the complete Changelog of the project, and here the Roadmap we hope to follow.

Requirements

• .NET Framework 3.5

How to install

To use the library, you only need to:

1. Download current version.
2. Copy XadesNetLib.dll to your project library dependencies folder.
3. Add the reference to the dll in your project.

... and you are ready to go !

Usage

Basically, XAdES .NET Project library (in its 0.2 version), provides two operations:

• XMLDSIG Sign (and Batch Signature)
• XMLDSIG Verification

This operations are accesible through the methods of one Utility Class called XadesNetLib.XmlDsig.XmlDsigHelper.
This class delegates in a fluent interface to make the usage simpler and clearer, trying to get code the nearest to natural language possible.

Credits

XAdES .NET Project is the collaboration of:

• Víctor Manuel Villa Palomino
• Luis Miguel Villa Palomino