Supported Protocols

Owned by Scott Cantor
Last updated: Jul 12, 2023 by Scott Cantor
2 min read

Shibboleth Implemented Protocols and Profiles

Below is a list of the protocols and profiles supported by the "current" Shibboleth products, which are generally the same as older versions, but any differences are noted.

  • A YES does not indicate that every possible option has been implemented as some protocol/profiles have many tens or hundreds of possible options. It does indicate that at minimum all required options are supported.

  • Some protocol implementations may not be available in the base download, but are available as extensions.

Identity and Service Provider

Protocol/Profile

Identity Provider

Service Provider

Protocol/Profile

Identity Provider

Service Provider

SAML 1.1 1

  • SSO Profile

YES

YES

  • Shibboleth SSO Request Profile

YES

YES

  • Attribute Query

YES

YES 2

  • Artifact Resolution

YES

YES

SAML 2.0

  • SSO

YES

YES

  • Attribute Query

YES

YES 2

  • Artifact Resolution

YES

YES

  • Enhanced Client

YES

YES

  • Single Logout

YES 4

YES

  • Name ID management

NO

YES 3

  • Name ID mapping

NO

NO

WS-Federation Passive (ADFS)

NO

YES

WS-Trust 1.3

NO

NO

OpenID 1

NO

NO

OpenID 2

NO

NO

OAuth 2

YES 5

NO

OpenID Connect

YES 6

NO

CAS

YES 7

NO

1 Support for SAML 1.0 is minimal and mostly accidental with modern releases. Support for SAML 1.1 in the IdP is approaching “deprecated/at-risk” status with V5.0 and may disappear in the future. Anybody still using SAML 1.1 should absolutely be prioritizing migrating off of it.
2 Implemented as part of SSO profile support, exposed through additional features in SP 2.6 and later.
3 Implemented only in the form of application notification hooks for IdP-initiated protocol. SP-initiated not supported.
4 A first implementation of real Single Logout was added in IdP V3.2.
5 An official plugin is available for V4.1+.
6 A supported third-party extension is available for V3/V4.0 and and official plugin is available for V4.1+
7 Introduced in IdP V3, see documentation for specifics on features.

Discovery Services

Protocol/Profile

Embedded DS

Protocol/Profile

Embedded DS

Shibboleth 1 Discovery (WAYF) Protocol

NO

SAML 2 Discovery Service Protocol

YES