Installing the JCE Classes

Java runtimes such as those based around Classpath, Kaffe, and JREs from Sun and IBM up to version 1.4 do not include the JCE classes, encompassed by the javax.crypto package and its subpackages. Furthermore, many commercial Java 1.4 and later runtime environments do not allow providers to be installed if they are not digitally signed by an authority. The GNU Crypto developers do not agree with this practice and are not seeking to have GNU Crypto's provider signed.

To overcome this GNU Crypto includes a clean-room implementation of the javax.crypto packages, which is a modified version of the clean-room JCE distributed by the Legion of the Bouncy Castle <http://bouncycastle.org/>. If building these classes is enabled at compile-time, a Java archive file javax-crypto.jar will be built, along with the appropriate shared native libraries if you are using GCJ. Simply adding it to your system classpath should suffice, possibly replacing or superceding the jce.jar file that came with your virtual machine.

The JCE included mirrors most of the features of the reference JCE, except the ExemptionMechanism classes are omitted. U.S. export rules as of January 2000 no longer apply to open source software that is freely available on the Internet, so these classes have no practical use in GNU Crypto.