Notation vs Red Hat Trusted Artifact Signer

Notation is a command-line tool for signing and verifying container images and other artifacts in OCI registries, including software bills of materials. It implements the Notary Project specifications, which are intended to help secure software supply chains. Its signatures can move between OCI registries and be validated in connected, intermittently connected, or disconnected environments without additional server infrastructure. The specifications define signature envelopes using COSE or JWS. Notation can integrate with existing key management systems through a plugin model, with instructions for Azure Key Vault and AWS Signer. Developers and CI/CD pipelines can create signatures and store them alongside signed artifacts. The project provides a quick start for signing and validating a container image. Notation runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows and is free under the Apache 2.0 license. Cloud signing, trusted timestamping, and CI/CD signing are listed capabilities; a certificate is not provided. The specifications repository lists a 2023 security audit, and the project overview describes continuous fuzz testing across three repositories.

Red Hat Trusted Artifact Signer (RHTAS) helps organizations sign and verify software artifacts, including container images, binaries, documents, source-code commits, software bills of materials, build artifacts, and AI/ML models. Red Hat describes it as an enterprise deployment of Sigstore. Its client tools include cosign, gitsign, and rekor-cli. Signing can use OpenID Connect identities or self-managed keys held in a third-party key management system. A certificate transparency log records signing events in an immutable ledger that Red Hat says is inaccessible to the public. Deployment guidance covers Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform and Red Hat Enterprise Linux; Amazon EKS is listed as a development preview for RHTAS 1.4. The OpenShift guide requires version 4.16 or later, cluster-admin access, an OIDC provider, and the oc command-line tool. CLI binaries are listed for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Pricing is on request, and a 60-day trial is listed. Signing and verifying AI/ML models with the CLI is marked Technology Preview and is not covered by production SLAs.