Introduction
as2d is a production AS2 server: it exchanges EDI documents (or any payload) with your trading partners over HTTP using the AS2 protocol (RFC 4130, AS2 version 1.1 including RFC 5402 compression), with encryption, digital signatures, and signed delivery receipts (MDNs).
It is a single small container image, written in Rust on the OpenSSL crypto library, that runs the same way everywhere: a laptop, a Docker host, any Kubernetes cluster, or Azure Container Apps at scale-to-zero.
Who this book is for
- Managers / evaluators — start with Why as2d, the feature matrix, and interoperability.
- Operators — the Deployment chapters take
you from
docker runto Kubernetes and Azure, including license installation and monitoring. - Integrators / developers — the Integration chapters cover partnership configuration, certificates, MDN semantics, and product-specific notes for the AS2 software your partners run.
What AS2 is, in one paragraph
AS2 wraps a business document in S/MIME layers — optionally compressed, signed, and encrypted — and POSTs it to the partner’s HTTPS endpoint. The receiver unwraps it, verifies who sent it and that it was not altered, and returns a Message Disposition Notification (MDN): a signed receipt containing a cryptographic digest (the MIC) of what was received. When the sender’s own digest matches the receipt’s, both sides hold proof of delivery — the property that makes AS2 the standard for retail, logistics, pharma, and healthcare EDI (including Drummond-certified networks like Walmart’s and the DEA’s e-prescribing rules).