Subject Alternative Name

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An example of a Subject Alternative Name section for domain names owned by the Wikimedia Foundation

Subject Alternative Name (SAN) is an extension to X.509 that allows various values to be associated with a security certificate using a subjectAltName field.[1] These values are called Subject Alternative Names (SANs). Names include:[2]

  • Email addresses
  • IP addresses
  • URIs
  • DNS names: this is usually also provided as the Common Name RDN within the Subject field of the main certificate.
  • Directory names: alternative Distinguished Names to that given in the Subject.
  • Other names, given as a General Name or Universal Principal Name: a registered object identifier followed by a value.

RFC 2818 (May 2000) specifies Subject Alternative Names as the preferred method of adding DNS names to certificates, deprecating the previous method of putting DNS names in the commonName field.[3] Google Chrome version 58 (March 2017) removed support for checking the commonName field at all, instead only looking at the SANs.[3]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ "x509v3_config - X509 V3 certificate extension configuration format". OpenSSL. Retrieved 2020-01-16.
  2. ^ RFC 5280: 4.2.1.6. Subject Alternative Name
  3. ^ a b Medley, Joseph (March 2017). "Deprecations and Removals in Chrome 58". Google Developers. Retrieved 2022-01-04.
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