8. Textual Encoding of PKCS #7 Cryptographic Message Syntax

PKCS #7 Cryptographic Message Syntax structures are encoded using the "PKCS7" label. The encoded data MUST be a BER-encoded ASN.1 ContentInfo structure as described in [RFC2315].

-----BEGIN PKCS7-----
MIHjBgsqhkiG9w0BCRABF6CB0zCB0AIBADFho18CAQCgGwYJKoZIhvcNAQUMMA4E
CLfrI6dr0gUWAgITiDAjBgsqhkiG9w0BCRADCTAUBggqhkiG9w0DBwQIZpECRWtz
u5kEGDCjerXY8odQ7EEEromZJvAurk/j81IrozBSBgkqhkiG9w0BBwEwMwYLKoZI
hvcNAQkQAw8wJDAUBggqhkiG9w0DBwQI0tCBcU09nxEwDAYIKwYBBQUIAQIFAIAQ
OsYGYUFdAH0RNc1p4VbKEAQUM2Xo8PMHBoYdqEcsbTodlCFAZH4=
-----END PKCS7-----

Figure 10: PKCS #7 Example

The label "CERTIFICATE CHAIN" has been in use to denote a degenerate PKCS #7 structure that contains only a list of certificates (see Section 9 of [RFC2315]). Several modern tools do not support this label. Generators MUST NOT generate the "CERTIFICATE CHAIN" label. Parsers SHOULD NOT treat "CERTIFICATE CHAIN" as equivalent to "PKCS7".

PKCS #7 is an old specification that has long been superseded by CMS [RFC5652]. Implementations SHOULD NOT generate PKCS #7 when CMS is an alternative.