Monotonic Counter Objects

The CKA_HW_FEATURE_TYPE attribute takes the value CKH_MONOTONIC_COUNTER of type CK_HW_FEATURE.

Monotonic counter objects represent hardware counters that exist on the device. The counter is guaranteed to increase each time its value is read, but not necessarily by one. This might be used by an application for generating serial numbers to get some assurance of uniqueness per token.

Table 19, Monotonic Counter Attributes
Attribute Data Type Meaning

CKA_RESET_ON_INIT¹ CK_BBOOL The value of the counter will reset to a previously returned value if the token is initialized using C_InitializeToken.

CKA_HAS_RESET¹ CK_BBOOL The value of the counter has been reset at least once at some point in time.

CKA_VALUE¹ Byte Array The current version of the monotonic counter. The value is returned in big endian order.

¹Read Only

The CKA_VALUE attribute may not be set by the client.

RSA Security Inc. Public-Key Cryptography Standards - PKCS#11 - v220

Attribute	Data Type	Meaning
CKA_RESET_ON_INIT¹	CK_BBOOL	The value of the counter will reset to a previously returned value if the token is initialized using C_InitializeToken.
CKA_HAS_RESET¹	CK_BBOOL	The value of the counter has been reset at least once at some point in time.
CKA_VALUE¹	Byte Array	The current version of the monotonic counter. The value is returned in big endian order.