What is GlobalPlatform and JavaCard relationship?

Question

I'm getting started with GlobalPlatfrom Card spec and I cannot figure out how GLobalPlatform functinalify comes to JavaCard. Is there any applet that should be installed into a card to make this card GP-compatible? Or is the GP-functionality provided into a card during manufacturing as JRE extension? Or even is it possible to make non GP-compatible card to be GP-compatible?

Vermination

Had to remove the last part of the question(s) as asking for refs/tutorials etc. is explicitly off-topic. – Bold

Answer 1

Global Platform (GP) mainly handles the management of Applets and life cycle management on a smart card. GP cannot be loaded as an Applet as a normal Applet does not have those kind of permissions. Applets may however have certain privileges assigned to them by GP. The GP is part of the runtime that also contains the Java Card implementation.

GP also has a relatively small API available to Java Card Applets. This GP API allows Java Cards to request and (if they are privileged) change the life cycle of the Applet. Furthermore, the GP authentication and secure message implementation may be used to personalize Applets.

Most Java Card implementations rely on Global Platform to perform the management and there certainly is collaboration between Global Platform and the Java Card Forum. This is of course largely due to the fact that many companies are members of both organizations.

Bold

Can you give further information about the GP API available to JC? Never encountered anything like that! – Luanneluanni

It's in the card spec. It's a separate package so it is controlled by GP. The package name is org.globalplatform and there are 3 classes: CVM (PIN), GPSystem and SecureChannel. – Bold

Thank you, for people intrested: detailed information is given in GP 2.2 Appendix A(or whatever version you need). – Luanneluanni

@MaartenBodewes How can I use this packages in my applet? (GP API.) Are they available to include them in Eclipse for example and use them in my applets? – Staghound

Yes, normally they are available as .jar and .exp files you can link to, e.g. gp211.jar and gp211.exp. It depends on the SDK if those files are included. I primarily use JCOP which already includes those files when I choose a specific configuration (posted as answer first because of misclick on Android app). – Bold

I was guessed it is a misclick. Really thank you. I didn't know anything about it! :) – Staghound

Answer 2

Global Platform is a specification for deploying and managing several applets on a smartcard. Probably every Java Card Smartcard that you can find out there is Global Platform compatible. However you usually don't need to worry about Global Platform interna as the tool you use for uploading and installing java card applets will do it for you(for example JCOP Tools, GP Shell, gpj, etc)

Luanneluanni

GP does have a runtime API and component as well. This API can for instance be used to personalize the applet. So although you can certainly upload and install a pure Java Card applet, larger applets that require centralized personalization often include GP functionality. – Bold

Answer 3

You can see the 'Runtime Environment' section in the chapter ' Card Atchitecture ' of GP spec. The image 'GlobalPlatform Card Architecture' has showed you the relationship between Java and GP.

Ammann