add backend interface for loading x509 certificates

2 files changed, 23 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/docs/hazmat/backends/interfaces.rst b/docs/hazmat/backends/interfaces.rst
index ce2f0918..47553a9d 100644
--- a/docs/hazmat/backends/interfaces.rst
+++ b/docs/hazmat/backends/interfaces.rst
@@ -512,3 +512,17 @@ A specific ``backend`` may provide one or more of these interfaces.
         :raises cryptography.exceptions.UnsupportedAlgorithm: If the data is
             encrypted with an unsupported algorithm.
 
+
+.. class:: X509Backend
+
+    .. versionadded:: 0.7
+
+    A backend with methods for working with X.509 objects.
+
+    .. method:: load_pem_x509_certificate(data)
+
+        :param bytes data: PEM formatted certificate data.
+
+        :returns: An instance of a
+            :class:`~cryptography.hazmat.primitives.interfaces.X509Certificate`
+            provider.
diff --git a/src/cryptography/hazmat/backends/interfaces.py b/src/cryptography/hazmat/backends/interfaces.py
index f433afcb..dcdd1c39 100644
--- a/src/cryptography/hazmat/backends/interfaces.py
+++ b/src/cryptography/hazmat/backends/interfaces.py
@@ -250,3 +250,12 @@ class PKCS8SerializationBackend(object):
         Load a private key from PKCS8 encoded data, using password if the data
         is encrypted.
         """
+
+
+@six.add_metaclass(abc.ABCMeta)
+class X509Backend(object):
+    @abc.abstractmethod
+    def load_pem_x509_certificate(self, data):
+        """
+        Load an X.509 certificate from PEM encoded data.
+        """