This is a marker interface to identify key manager objects. A key manager is responsible for obtaining and managing authentication credentials (such as a certificate chain and an associated private key) that the local host can use to authenticate itself to the remote host. It is usually used on the server-side of an SSL connection, but can be used on the client-side as well. Use a KeyManagerFactory to obtain KeyManager objects. KeyManager objects returned by a KeyManagerFactory can always be cast to a subinterface specific to a particular type of authentication credentials. See X509KeyManager , for example. public interface KeyManager { } ImplementationsX509KeyManager Passed ToSSLContext.init( ) , SSLContextSpi.engineInit( ) Returned ByKeyManagerFactory.getKeyManagers( ) , KeyManagerFactorySpi.engineGetKeyManagers( ) |