Authenticated Protocol Upgrade

The authenticated protocol upgrade procedure enables an existing activation to migrate to a newer algorithm for communication with the PowerAuth Server. Following conditions must be satisfied before the upgrade can proceed:

• The PowerAuth Server version must be 2.0 or later.
• The PowerAuth SDK instance must be configured with support for at least EC_P384 algorithm for communication with the PowerAuth Server.

An application can check whether a protocol upgrade is available for the current activation by invoking:

let upgradeAvailable = powerAuthSDK.hasProtocolUpgradeAvailable()

Note that the availability information is derived from the activation status obtained from the PowerAuth Server. Consequently, an upgrade may become available after a successful activation status fetch. This method is not required to be called prior to starting the protocol upgrade.

A protocol upgrade is an authenticated operation. User must provide valid knowledge authentication factor (e.g. password or PIN). To start the protocol upgrade, call:

powerAuthSDK.startProtocolUpgrade(password: "1234") { (result, error) in
    if let result {
        if result.activationStatusFetchRequired {
            // Activation status fetch is required to complete the protocol upgrade
        } else {
            // Protocol upgrade is completed
        }
    } else {
        // Error occurred
    }
}

If the call succeeds, the application must inspect the activationStatusFetchRequired field of the result object. If set to true, activation status fetch must be performed to complete the protocol upgrade. Only after successful activation status fetch is the protocol upgrade considered completed. If the activationStatusFetchRequired field of the result object is set to false, the protocol upgrade is considered completed without any further action and the result object also contains new activationFingerprint. If an error occurs, the PowerAuth SDK will revert to the previous activation state, and the upgrade can be safely retried later.

Until the protocol upgrade is fully completed, the PowerAuth SDK restricts certain functionality, such as PowerAuth authentication code calculation. To verify whether the activation is still in the middle of an upgrade, call:

let upgradePending = powerAuthSDK.hasPendingProtocolUpgrade()

If this call returns true, the application must perform an activation status fetch to complete the upgrade.

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