Preparing JBoss for the Shibboleth Identity Provider

Version Requirements/Recommendations

JBoss AS 5 or greater
Java 6 or greater

Required Configuration Changes

Edit your the login-config.xml configuration file and comment out the <application-policy name = "other"> element. This default policy requires that a user authentication source also report a set of roles for the user. Most deployer's will not do this during the authentication step (though they may later on during the attribute resolution step). Therefore, this policy needs to be removed.

Recommended Configuration Changes

Limit the allowed size of POST submissions to any HTTP or AJP connectors (including the SOAP connector below) by adding the maxPostSize attribute. A size of 200K (204800) is a reasonable choice.

Supporting SOAP Endpoints

Shibboleth IdPs and SP may communicate directly, as opposed to sending messages via the user's browser, during certain operations (Attribute Query, Artifact Resolution, and Logout). In order to support these request the IdP needs an additional port (called a Connector within the Tomcat configuration), distinct from the one used by the user (because they have different, mutually exclusive, security requirements).

Configure Tomcat

Download tomcat6-dta-ssl-1.0.0.jar (asc) in to server/<serviceProfile>/deploy/jboss-web.sar/

Add the following Connector definition into JBoss Tomcat's server/<serviceProfile>/deploy/jboss-web.sar//server.xml.

<Connector port="8443"
           protocol="org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol"
           SSLImplementation="edu.internet2.middleware.security.tomcat6.DelegateToApplicationJSSEImplementation"
           scheme="https"
           maxPostSize="204800"
           SSLEnabled="true"
           clientAuth="want"
           keystoreFile="IDP_HOME/credentials/idp.jks"
           keystorePass="PASSWORD" />

Replace IDP_HOME with the IdP home directory entered during installation.
Replace PASSWORD with the password for the IdP key entered during installation.