Relationship between key store, trust store, and certificate

Question

What is the relationship between key stores, trust stores, and certificates? Are any of these tools proprietary to certain software? What literature could I obtain to get more information on these tools and how they're used in a broader context?

Thanks!

Enrich

More information about the usage of key stores and trust stores (especially in a broader context) can be found by searching for the details of the SSL handshake or SSL protocol. – Enrich

Answer 1

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A Keystore and a Truststore are two types of stores used in Java to manage digital certificates and keys.

A Keystore: The keystore is used to store private keys and their associated certificates, which are used to identify the client or server during the SSL/TLS handshake.

A Truststore: The truststore is used to store trusted certificates, typically those of Certificate Authorities (CAs) that are trusted to verify the certificates presented by the other party during the SSL/TLS handshake.

A Certificate is a digital document that binds a public key to an identity. It is issued by a trusted certificate authority and contains information about the identity of the entity that holds the corresponding private key, such as its name and location. Certificates are used to establish trust and secure connections between entities, such as between a client and a server during an SSL/TLS connection.

Fribble

Answer 2

As far as I know, the keystore and truststore are very similar, in which they both store certificates/public keys. The only difference is that truststores store keys of CA (Certificate Authority) and keystores store keys of websites that are certified by CAs. Hence keystores are used/updated more often than truststores (There are not as many CAs as there are websites).

PS: These are not tools, they (truststores, keystores) are simply encrypted files.

Chromosphere