Thanks, but that doesn't completely answer my question. Let me rephrase:
As OpenSSL is walking up the chain, it looks at a cert's issuer name and
then tries to find a cert in the cert store with that name as a subject
name. In my case, it will find two. Does it just pick the first one (if
so, I imagine that it's non-deterministic which one will be first)? Or
does it expect that it might find more than one, and pick one based on
some criteria?

-Rick 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dr. Stephen Henson
> Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2007 11:13 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: Question about ambiguous cert chains
> 
> On Thu, Jan 11, 2007, Andrews, Rick wrote:
> 
> > If I am cross-certifying a root cert with another root 
> cert, and both 
> > roots are in my cert store, then OpenSSL might see an 
> ambiguous chain 
> > when it tries to verify. There would be two possible chains 
> instead of 
> > one. Can OpenSSL handle such a case? I haven't found any 
> documentation 
> > on this. Thanks,
> > 
> 
> OpenSSL currently tries to traverse a single certificate 
> path. It doesn't try multiple paths when attempting to find a 
> trusted root. So if the path lookup fails at some point it 
> will produce an error.
> 
> So two chains instead of one isn't fatal as long as both are complete.
> 
> Steve.
> --
> Dr Stephen N. Henson. Email, S/MIME and PGP keys: see 
> homepage OpenSSL project core developer and freelance consultant.
> Funding needed! Details on homepage.
> Homepage: http://www.drh-consultancy.demon.co.uk
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