Author: Moieen Abbas

CVC-Viewer is a desktop utility to view and inspect Card Verifiable Certificates (CVC). Card Verifiable Certificates are specialized digital certificates designed to be processed by constrained devices such as smart cards.

CVCs are defined in BSI TR-03110 and are widely used in the EU EAC (Extended Access Control) ecosystem for:

• ePassports
• eIDs
• Inspection Systems
• Terminal and DV/IS certificates

This tool provides a human-readable view of CV Certificates without assuming X.509 semantics.

• View CVC (BSI TR-03110) certificates

• Supports raw DER, Base64, and PEM-like inputs

• Displays:

  • Certificate Holder Reference (CHR)
  • Certificate Authority Reference (CAR)
  • Public Key parameters
  • Validity dates
  • Authorization roles and permissions
  • Authenticated Request / Outer Signature / Outer CAR
  • RSA with PKCSv1.5 and PSS (SHA1, SHA256, SHA512)
  • ECDSA (SHA1, SHA256, SHA512)

• Supports single certificates and certificate chains

The GitHub Releases page provides a ready-to-use Windows ZIP distribution.

1. Download the Windows ZIP from GitHub Releases

2. Extract the ZIP archive

3. Run the EXE file:

   CVCViewer.exe
   

4. A file chooser dialog will appear

5. Select:

   • CV Certificate
   • CV Request
   • Related EAC/CVC files

The certificate details will be displayed in the viewer.

• Java must be installed

• OR JAVA_HOME must be correctly set in system environment variables

• Minimum required JRE:

  Java 1.8.0_131
  

For Linux and macOS, use the executable JAR provided in GitHub Releases.

⚠️ This application required Graphical Environment to run, headless is not supported.

java -jar <location>/CVC-Viewer-2.0.jar

This will open the application and prompt you to select a certificate file.

java -jar <location>/CVC-Viewer-2.0.jar <certificate_path>

This will launch the viewer and directly load the specified CV certificate.

• Java Runtime Environment installed

• Minimum required JRE:

  Java 1.8.0_131
  

The Windows ZIP distribution contains an additional install.bat file:

Run the install.bat file to automatically register the CVC Viewer executable in Windows. which performs following task:

• Adds CVC-Viewer to the Windows right-click context menu Open in CVC Viewer
• Register the CVC Viewer for files with extension .cvreq and .cvcert

• The installation creates a direct link to the CVC-Viewer EXE file

• Do NOT move or rename the EXE after installation

  • Doing so will break the context-menu link and file extension association

• If you move the EXE, you must re-install using install.bat

After installation, you can right-click a CV certificate file and open it directly using CVC-Viewer or directly double click .cvreq and .cvcert file.

CVC-Viewer uses a robust and format-agnostic certificate parser designed specifically for CV Certificates.

When a certificate file is loaded, the viewer applies the following logic:

1. PEM with headers If the file contains headers such as:

   -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
   

   the Base64 content is extracted and decoded.

   Supported PEM Headers Types:

    TYPE_CERTIFICATE = "CERTIFICATE";
    TYPE_CV_CERTIFICATE = "CV CERTIFICATE";
    TYPE_CV_LINK_CERTIFICATE = "CV LINK CERTIFICATE";
    TYPE_CV_REQUEST = "CV REQUEST";
    TYPE_CV_AUTHENTICATED_REQUEST = "CV AUTHENTICATED REQUEST";
   

2. Multiple PEM certificates If multiple BEGIN CERTIFICATE blocks are found, all certificates are parsed and loaded as a list (certificate chain support).

3. Comma-separated Base64 certificates If no headers are present but the file contains multiple Base64 blobs separated by commas, each entry is decoded as a separate CV certificate.

4. Plain Base64 certificate If the content looks like Base64 without headers, it is decoded directly.

5. Raw binary certificate (DER / CV) If none of the above formats match, the file is treated as raw binary CV certificate data and loaded as-is.

This ensures full compatibility with BSI TR-03110 encoded certificates.

CVC-Viewer supports the following real-world scenarios:

• Viewing Terminal Certificates (AT / IS / DV)

• Inspecting certificate chains (e.g., CVCA → DV → Terminal)

• Debugging EAC-based systems

• Analyzing certificates extracted from:

  • Smart cards
  • HSMs
  • ePassport inspection systems
  • File-based test vectors

• Educational and diagnostic use for PKI / EAC / ICAO implementations

git clone https://github.com/realmoieen/CVC-Viewer.git
cd CVC-Viewer
#To create only exe file 
./gradlew clean createExe 
#To create release for windows 
./gradlew clean windowsZip

This project includes the Bouncy Castle cryptographic libraries, available from:

• http://www.bouncycastle.org/

This project also includes a CVC module providing full support for Card Verifiable Certificates (BSI TR-03110) used by EU EAC ePassports and eIDs:

• https://github.com/eID-Testbeds/common-testbed-utilities

Refer to the repository for licensing details.