Connect. Communicate. Collaborate
Federation peering à la EuropeanThe eduGAIN way
Diego R. Lopez - RedIRIS
Connect. Communicate. CollaborateAs Federations Grow
• The risk of dying of success– Do we really need to go on selling the federated idea?
• Different communities, different needs– Not even talking about international collaboration– Different (but mostly alike) solutions– Grids and libraries as current examples– And many to come: Governments, professional
associations, commercial operators,…• Don’t hold your breath waiting for the Real And Only Global
Federation
Connect. Communicate. Collaborate
Confederations Federate Federations
• Same federating principles applied to federations themselves– Own policies and technologies are locally applied
• Independent management– Identity and authentication-authorization must be properly
handled by the participating federations• Commonly agreed policy
– Linking individual federation policies– Coarser than them
• Trust fabric entangling participants– Whitout affecting each federation’s fabric– E2E trust must be dynamically built
Connect. Communicate. CollaborateFirst Steps
• Simplifying user collaboration across whatever border is an excellent
selling argument
– Making the whole promise of the VO idea
– eduroam fast worldwide success is a clear example• Lingua franca
– Syntax: SAML profiles• Converging to 2.0
– Semantics: eduPerson, SCHAC• Trust fabric
– Public key technologies (if not infrastructures)– Component identifiers and registries– Metadata repositories
Connect. Communicate. CollaboratePolicy and Legal Matters
• The PMA model has proven extremely useful– Consensual set of guidelines– Peer-reviewed accreditation
• Legal matters: Hic sunt leones– For techies like us– Privacy– Liability– More or less manageable in the case of (national)
federations
Connect. Communicate. CollaborateThe AAI Goal in GÉANT2
• To build an interoperable authentication and authorisation infrastructure that will be used all over Europe enabling seamless sharing of e-science resources
• We started from– Scattered AAI implementations in the EU and abroad
• And growing– The basic idea of federating them, preserving hard-
won achievements
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Applying Confederation Concepts
• An eduGAIN confederation is a loosely-coupled set of cooperating federations– That handle identity management, authentication and
authorization using their own policies• Trust between any two participants in different federations
is dynamically established– Members of a participant federation do not know in
advance about members in the other federations• Syntax and semantics are adapted to a common language
– Through an abstract service definition
Connect. Communicate. CollaborateThe eduGAIN Components
• Bridging Elements (BE)– Interconnection points– Federation-wide (LFA) or distributed (LA)
• Federation Peering Point (FPP)– Able to announce BE metadata
• The Metadata Service (MDS)– Publishing interface (to FPPs)– Querying interface (to BEs)
Connect. Communicate. CollaborateThe eduGAIN Model Connect. Communicate. Collaborate
Id Repository(ies)Resource(s)
MDS
R-FPP
MetadataPublish
R-BE
MetadataQuery
AAInteraction
H-FPP
MetadataPublish
H-BE
AAInteraction
AA Interaction
Connect. Communicate. CollaborateAn Adaptable ModelFrom centralized structures... Connect. Communicate. Collaborate
MDS
FPP
BE
FPP
BE
SPSP
SP
SP
SP
IdP
IdP
IdP
IdP
IdP
IdP
IdPSP SP SP SP
Connect. Communicate. CollaborateAn Adaptable Model...to fully E2E ones... Connect. Communicate. Collaborate
MDS
SPBE
IdPBE
SPBE
SPBE
SPBE
SPBE
IdPBE
IdPBE
IdPBE
SPBE
IdPBE
IdPBEIdP
BE
SPBE
SPBE
SPBE
Connect. Communicate. CollaborateAn Adaptable Model...including any mix of them Connect. Communicate. Collaborate
MDS
SPBE
IdPBE
IdPBEIdP
BE
SPBE
SPBE
SPBE
FPP
BE
SPSP
SP
SP
SP
IdP
IdP
IdP
IdPBE
FPP
Connect. Communicate. CollaborateThe (X.509) Trust Fabric
• Validation procedures include– Normal certificate validation
• Trust path evaluation, signatures, revocation,…– Peer identification
• Certificates hold the component identifier• It must match the appropriate metadata
• Applicable to– TLS connections between components
• Two-way validation is mandatory– Verification of signed XML assertions
Connect. Communicate. CollaborateComponent Identifiers
• eduGAIN operations strongly depend on having unique, structured and well-defined component identifiers
• Based on URNs delegated by the eduGAIN registry to the participating federation
• Identifiers establish the kind of component they apply to by means of normalized prefixes
• Identifiers follow the hierarchy of the trust establishing process
Connect. Communicate. Collaborate
A General Model for eduGAIN Interactions Connect. Communicate. Collaborate
Requester Responder
Id RepositoryResource
TLS Channel(s)
MDS
TLS Channel
https://mds.geant.net/ ?cid=someURN <EntityDescriptor . . .
entityID= ”urn:geant2:..:responder">. . .<SingleSignOnService . . . Location= “https://responder.dom/” /> . . .
<samlp:Request . . . RequestID=”e70c3e9e6…” IssueInstant=“2006-06…”> . . .</samlp:Request>
<samlp:Response . . . ResponseID=”092e50a08…” InResponseTo=“e70c3e9e…”> . . .</samlp:Response>
urn:geant2:...:responder
urn:geant2:...:requester
Connect. Communicate. CollaborateOperation Mapping
• Maps the abstract service definition into actual protocols• Current version is based on SAML 1.1
– Profiling the standard to fit abstract parameters• A SAML 2.0 implementation will be available along the
lifetime of the project– The abstract service specification protects components
and applications from these changes• Authentication assertions and attribute exchange
mechanisms are designed to be Shibboleth 1.3 compatible– And Shibboleth 2 in the future
Connect. Communicate. CollaborateMetadata Service
• Based on REST interfaces transporting SAML 2.0 metadata– Usable by non-eduGAIN components
• Metadata are published through POST operations• Metadata are retrieved through GET operations• URLs are built as
MDSBaseURL/FederationID/entityID?queryString– Using component names– The query string transports data intended to locate the appropriate
home BE (Home Locators)• Hints provided by the user• Contents of certificate extensions (SubjectAlternateName SubjectInformationAccess)
Connect. Communicate. Collaborate
A Layered Model for Implementation Connect. Communicate. Collaborate
Component logic
eduGAINBase + eduGAINVal + eduGAINMeta
SAML toolkit (OpenSAML)
SOAP/TLS/XMLSig libraries
eduGAINBase Profile Access
Connect. Communicate. CollaborateeduGAIN Profiles
• Oriented to– Enable direct federation interaction – Enable services in a confederated environment
• Four profiles discussed so far– WebSSO (Shibboleth browser/POST)– AC (automated cilent: no human interaction)– UbC (user behind non-Web client: use of SASL-CA)– WE (WebSSO enhanced client: delegation)
• Others envisaged– Extended Web SSO (allowing the send of POST data)– eduGAIN usage from roaming clients (DAMe)
• Based on SAML 1.1– Mapping to SAML 2.0 profiles along the transition period
Connect. Communicate. CollaborateThe European Way
• (Too) many governments, languages, national priorities/laws/prides/…– A little of weakness, a little of strength
• The will for convergence– Without imposing dramatic inner changes
• Adopt whatever is worth from overseas– With a scent of style and history
• (Humble) model for the rest of the world– We are a little world in itself
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