NIST testing is designed to test the interoperability between peer S/MIME applications and Certification Authority products, and between S/MIME applications and Directories. The S/MIME specification allows multiple interpretations and implementations and is sometimes silent about key aspects that affect interoperability. A number of "S/MIME Enabled" products are available on the market that may be incapable of fully interacting with one another. 

NIST has been developing an Internet-based automated testing facility. This automated "testbed" was designed to help ensure conformance to the Federal S/MIME V3 Client Profile, (NIST Special Publication 800-49), help ensure conformance to related "standards" (IETF RFCs), and help ensure interoperability of S/MIME V3 products. As part of the automated testing facility, a S/MIME V3 reference implementation has been deployed. The reference implementation supports both originator and recipient roles and conforms to a subset of the Federal S/MIME V3 Client Profile. Thus, the reference implementation will serve to validate not only S/MIME V3 implementations, but the NIST profile as well.

The automated test facility was designed to assist product developers by providing immediate feedback on newly implemented features. The test results will establish the success or failure of new features, and provide detailed failure reports when errors are encountered. Methodical testing against a known reference implementation is often more valuable than ad hoc testing against an arbitrary set of implementations. In particular, performance of a well-designed test suite against a known reference implementation can provide consistent and more complete test coverage of important features as well as detailed error analysis and feedback.

Status: The NIST S/MIME V3 Test Facility is now open for limited-use testing. Due to decreases in funding and available manpower, further development of and support for the test facility has been indefinitely suspended. NIST plans to have the test facility remain on-line indefinitely and be available on an "as is" basis, i.e., with little to no NIST support available. After downloading and reading the instructions for using the test facility you may proceed to use the facility immediately.

For more information on the status of the test facility, please contact David Cooper