File(s): conf/relying-party.xml
Format: Native Spring
Overview
The SAML1.AttributeQuery profile configuration bean enables support for the SAML 1.1 Attribute Query profile over SOAP. It was historically used to support Shibboleth SP software that understood how to supplement SAML 1.1 SSO with queries in order to improve attribute confidentiality. It is rarely needed any longer.
By default, the IdP will only respond to queries containing NameIdentifiers that it understands how to reverse-map into user identities, and it will not do so out of the box for anything but transient identifiers issued by it. Nevertheless, it should be disabled if not in use.
Configuration
The most typical options used are described in more detail below, but not every obscure option is discussed. See the javadoc for all of the possible configuration options for this profile (note that many of them are inherited from parent classes).
Virtually all the configuration options below can be set via two different properties: a static property that explicitly sets the value to use and a lookup strategy or predicate property that takes a Function or Predicate and returns the value to use. The dynamic property is generally named "propertyNamePredicate" or "propertyNameLookupStrategy" for Boolean- and non-Boolean-valued properties respectively.
Common
Options common to most/all profiles:
Name | Type | Default | Description |
|---|
securityConfiguration | SecurityConfiguration | Bean named shibboleth.DefaultSecurityConfiguration | An object containing all of the default security-related objects needed for peer authentication and encryption. See SecurityConfiguration for complete details. |
disallowedFeatures | Integer | 0 | A bitmask of features to disallow, the mask values being specific to individual profiles |
inboundInterceptorFlows | List<String> | | Ordered list of profile interceptor flows to run prior to message processing |
outboundInterceptorFlows | List<String> | | Ordered list of profile interceptor flows to run prior to outbound message handling |
Guidance
Modifying the security configuration is usually done to:
specify an alternate signing or decryption key to use
control signing or encryption algorithms (but for metadata you control, it's advisable to control algorithms by using an extension to specify supported algorithms).
The two interceptor lists allow the much less commonly used profile interceptor injection points to be used. This is largely a Java-based way of doing very low-level sorts of “message rewriting” hackery that might otherwise be impossible to pull off. One use case for the inbound side might be picking up non-standard parameters in a SAML request.
SAML
Options common to SAML profiles:
Name | Type | Default | Description |
|---|
signResponses | Boolean | varies by profile | Whether to sign responses |
signRequests | Boolean | false | Whether to sign requests |
messageHandler | Function<MessageContext,Exception> | | A function hook allowing modification of SAML messages before signing and transmission, useful for adding extensions |
Guidance
It isn't too common to need any of these options, and they should be changed only with care.
The signing defaults vary by profile, see the notes on the individual profile pages.
SAML Assertion
Options common to SAML profiles that create assertions:
Name | Type | Default | Description |
|---|
assertionAudiences | Set<String> | | Additional values to populate into audience restriction condition of assertions |
includeConditionsNotBefore | Boolean | true | Whether to include a NotBefore attribute in assertions |
assertionLifetime | Duration | PT5M | Lifetime of assertions |
signAssertions | Boolean | false | Whether to sign assertions |
Guidance
It isn't too common to need any of these options, and they should be changed only with care.
The assertionAudiences and includeConditionsNotBefore settings provide ways to work around bugs in other systems. You should never use these settings without obtaining a commitment from the other system's owner to fix their bugs.
The assertionLifetime setting does not involve control over the session with the relying party, it's only relevant in delegation scenarios and delegation is no longer supported so this is a largely unnecessary setting.
If you need to enable the signAssertions option, and you control the SP's metadata, you should generally add the WantAssertionsSigned flag to it in place of using this option. Related, the idp.saml.honorWantAssertionsSigned property can be turned off to globally ignore that flag in metadata should you wish to do so.
Notes
The default value of signResponses for this profile is an extended form of the behavior that was referred to in V2 as "conditional". It signs only if TLS isn't used (very unusual) or if the receiving port is 443. It assumes that traffic over 443 will be relying on message-based security measures, whereas traffic to an alternative TLS port like 8443 will be relying on mutual authentication and thus provide a secure channel.
Since SAML 1.1 does not support XML Encryption, all data is in plaintext, and therefore use of message-based security is not advisable.