hyperledger/fabric · error

invalid signed deployment spec

Error message

invalid signed deployment spec

What it means

After extracting the signed deployment spec, SignExistingPackage validates that the SignedChaincodeDeploymentSpec contains all required parts: the serialized ChaincodeDeploymentSpec, InstantiationPolicy and OwnerEndorsements. If any is nil/missing the spec is considered invalid and cannot be re-signed.

Source

Thrown at core/common/ccpackage/ccpackage.go:218

}

// SignExistingPackage adds a signature to a signed package.
func SignExistingPackage(env *common.Envelope, owner identity.SignerSerializer) (*common.Envelope, error) {
	if owner == nil {
		return nil, errors.New("owner not provided")
	}

	ch, sdepspec, err := ExtractSignedCCDepSpec(env)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

	if ch == nil {
		return nil, errors.New("channel header not found in the envelope")
	}

	if sdepspec == nil || sdepspec.ChaincodeDeploymentSpec == nil || sdepspec.InstantiationPolicy == nil || sdepspec.OwnerEndorsements == nil {
		return nil, errors.New("invalid signed deployment spec")
	}

	// serialize the signing identity
	endorser, err := owner.Serialize()
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("Could not serialize the signing identity: %s", err)
	}

	// sign the concatenation of cds, instpolicy and the serialized endorser identity with this endorser's key
	signature, err := owner.Sign(append(sdepspec.ChaincodeDeploymentSpec, append(sdepspec.InstantiationPolicy, endorser...)...))
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("Could not sign the ccpackage, err %s", err)
	}

	endorsements := append(sdepspec.OwnerEndorsements, &peer.Endorsement{Signature: signature, Endorser: endorser})

	return createSignedCCDepSpec(sdepspec.ChaincodeDeploymentSpec, sdepspec.InstantiationPolicy, endorsements)
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 2736b63f8f)

Solutions

  1. Regenerate the package with OwnerCreateSignedCCDepSpec (which always sets all three fields) instead of re-signing a corrupt one
  2. Validate the package: ExtractSignedCCDepSpec then check sdepspec.ChaincodeDeploymentSpec, InstantiationPolicy and OwnerEndorsements are non-nil before calling SignExistingPackage
  3. Re-download or re-export the original package file if it was corrupted in transit

Example fix

// before
env, err := ccpackage.SignExistingPackage(env, signer)
// after
_, sdepspec, err := ccpackage.ExtractSignedCCDepSpec(env)
if err != nil || sdepspec == nil || sdepspec.ChaincodeDeploymentSpec == nil || sdepspec.InstantiationPolicy == nil || sdepspec.OwnerEndorsements == nil {
    return errors.New("package is not a complete signed CDS; regenerate it")
}
env, err = ccpackage.SignExistingPackage(env, signer)
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

_, sdepspec, err := ccpackage.ExtractSignedCCDepSpec(env)
if err != nil || sdepspec == nil || sdepspec.ChaincodeDeploymentSpec == nil || sdepspec.InstantiationPolicy == nil || sdepspec.OwnerEndorsements == nil {
    return errors.New("package incomplete; regenerate with OwnerCreateSignedCCDepSpec")
}
env, err = ccpackage.SignExistingPackage(env, owner)

Type guard

func isCompleteSignedCDS(s *peer.SignedChaincodeDeploymentSpec) bool {
    return s != nil && len(s.ChaincodeDeploymentSpec) > 0 && s.InstantiationPolicy != nil && s.OwnerEndorsements != nil
}

Try / catch

env, err := ccpackage.SignExistingPackage(env, owner)
if err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "invalid signed deployment spec") {
        return fmt.Errorf("package corrupted or foreign format: %w", err)
    }
    return err
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Re-signing an envelope whose SignedChaincodeDeploymentSpec lacks ChaincodeDeploymentSpec bytes, has no InstantiationPolicy, or has nil OwnerEndorsements — typically a corrupted or partially written package file, or a foreign/envelope not produced by ccpackage.

Common situations: Package files truncated on disk or edited by hand; packages built by external tools omitting OwnerEndorsements; cross-version incompatibilities where older packaging code omitted fields; passing a raw CDS envelope instead of a signed one.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of hyperledger/fabric@2736b63f8f (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/43d148ec6f198edf. Report an issue: GitHub.