What is the purpose of "prologue" field used by kernel module signing script "sign-file"

[manisha verma]

Hi,

I am going through the
/usr/src/kernels/3.10.0-693.el7.x86_64/scripts/sign-file code. I need
to understand the meaning of the âprologueâ part in the script. The
script actually prefixes the prologue to the digest of the module file
and then signs it using the âopenssl rsautlâ.

Code snippet form
"/usr/src/kernels/3.10.0-693.el7.x86_64/scripts/sign-file" script

$prologue = pack(âC*â,
0x30, 0x31, 0x30, 0x0d, 0x06, 0x09,
0x60, 0x86, 0x48, 0x01, 0x65, 0x03, 0x04, 0x02, 0x01,
0x05, 0x00, 0x04, 0x20);

Does anybody have any idea, what is the significance of this prologue?

Thanks,
Manisha