NISTIR 7957 Conformance Test Architecture and Test Suite for ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2011 NIEM XML Encoded Transactions Fernando L. Podio Dylan Yaga Christofer J. McGinnis http://dx.doi.org/10.6028/NISTIR.XXXX NISTIR 7957 Conformance Test Architecture and Test Suite for ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2011 NIEM XML Encoded Transactions Fernando L. Podio Dylan Yaga Christofer J. McGinnis Computer Security Division Information Technology Laboratory August 2013 U.S. Department of Commerce Penny Pritzker, Secretary National Institute of Standards and Technology Patrick Gallagher, Under Secretary for Standards and Technology and Director National Institute of Standards and Technology Interagency Report 7957 38 pages (August 2013) Certain commercial entities, equipment, or materials may be identified in this document in order to describe an experimental procedure or concept adequately. Such identification is not intended to imply recommendation or endorsement by NIST, nor is it intended to imply that the entities, materials, or equipment are necessarily the best available for the purpose. There may be references in this publication to other publications currently under development by NIST in accordance with its assigned statutory responsibilities. The information in this publication, including concepts and methodologies, may be used by Federal agencies even before the completion of such companion publications. Thus, until each publication is completed, current requirements, guidelines, and procedures, where they exist, remain operative. For planning and transition purposes, Federal agencies may wish to closely follow the development of these new publications by NIST. Organizations are encouraged to review all draft publications during public comment periods and provide feedback to NIST. All NIST Computer Security Division publications, other than the ones noted above, are available at http://csrc.nist.gov/publications. Feedback Suggested Conformance Test Architectures and Test Suites, User Guides, and sample (“pass/fail”) data are available from the following web site: http://www.nist.gov/itl/csd/biometrics/biocta_download.cfm. Feedback on these test tools, the sample data, and documentation is welcome. Please send comments to [email protected]. ii Reports on Computer Systems Technology The Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) promotes the U.S. economy and public welfare by providing technical leadership for the Nation’s measurement and standards infrastructure. ITL develops tests, test methods, reference data, proof of concept implementations, and technical analyses to advance the development and productive use of information technology. ITL’s responsibilities include the development of management, administrative, technical, and physical standards and guidelines for the cost-effective security and privacy of other than national security-related information in Federal information systems Abstract The latest version of the ANSI/NIST-ITL standard was published in November 2011 (AN-2011). In addition to specifying Record Types in traditional encoding, the standard includes the specification of National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) Extensible Markup Language (XML) encoding and an associated schema. The Computer Security Division of NIST/ITL developed a Conformance Test Architecture (CTA) and Test Suite (CTS) called BioCTS for AN-2011 NIEM XML designed to test implementations of AN-2011 NIEM XML encoded transactions. Validating the XML files to a schema may indicate that the contained data is formatted correctly and individual values are within allowable ranges, assuming that the requirements for that data have been documented in the schema file. However, schemas are not designed to test the internal consistency of implementations (i.e., testing for a relationship between two elements or structures within a transaction). These shortcomings of XML schema files for use in conformance testing necessitate that schemas be used only as a component of a complete testing solution. This complete solution (the test tool) ensures test coverage of requirements through a combination of schema validation and conformance tests of the data in the XML files. This document discusses the test software design including the XML Data Structures used and Classes implemented. It addresses the testing phases and the format of the test results; as well as the user interface and key usability features implemented in this version of the test tool. Details are provided on a modified schema that was required to be used in the tool in order to fully perform tests for all the requirements specified in the AN-2011 standard. Future development steps including support for the new version of the ANSI/NIST-ITL standard under development are also discussed. Keywords ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2011, biometrics, conformance testing, conformance test architecture, CTA, CTS, BioCTS, conformance test suite, data interchange formats, encoding, XML NIEM, encoding. Acknowledgements The work discussed in this publication was sponsored, in part, by the Department of Homeland Security/Office of Biometric Identity Management (OBIM). iii Table of Contents 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 ANSI/NIST-ITL Standards .....................................................................................................1 1.2 Conformance Testing to Biometric Standards ......................................................................1 1.3 NIST/ITL’s Computer Security Division Conformity Assessment Related Efforts ....................2 2 BioCTS for AN-2011 NIEM XML - Conformance Test Tool ................................................. 3 2.1 Structure of AN-2011 XML-Encoded Transactions ................................................................3 2.2 BioCTS for AN-2011 NIEM XML Design .................................................................................4 2.3 Test Phases ........................................................................................................................5 2.4 Schema Modifications Required to Perform the Tests ..........................................................6 2.5 BioCTS for AN-2011 NIEM XML Data Structures and Class Diagrams .....................................7 2.5.1 Auxiliary Classes ...................................................................................................................................... 7 2.5.2 Class: An2K11_Xml .................................................................................................................................. 8 2.5.3 Abstract Class: Element .......................................................................................................................... 9 2.5.4 Class: Xml_Transaction ......................................................................................................................... 11 2.5.5 Abstract Class: Record .......................................................................................................................... 12 2.5.6 Abstract Class: ContainerElement ........................................................................................................ 13 2.5.7 Abstract Class: FieldTypeElement ......................................................................................................... 13 2.5.8 Abstract Class: ValueElement ............................................................................................................... 13 2.5.9 Abstract Class: NiemLeafElement ......................................................................................................... 15 2.5.10 Abstract Class: UnsupportedElement .............................................................................................. 15 2.5.11 Abstract Class: UndefinedElement ................................................................................................... 15 2.6 Parsing ............................................................................................................................. 15 2.6.1 Pre-Parse ............................................................................................................................................... 16 2.6.2 Parse Elements ..................................................................................................................................... 16 2.7 Testing ............................................................................................................................. 17 2.7.1 An2k11_Xml Testing – (An2Kk11_Xml.Test()) ............................................................................ 17 2.7.2 Hierarchical Element Testing ................................................................................................................ 17 3 Conformance Test Architecture User Interface Features ................................................ 18 3.2.1 Batch Testing ........................................................................................................................................ 21 3.2.2 Options ................................................................................................................................................. 22 4 Result Log Detail .......................................................................................................... 25 5 References ..................................................................................................................