AAI guide for SPs
Overview
This wiki page contains information about enabling federated access to EGI tools and services through the EGI AAI CheckIn service.
Integration/testing of SPs into the EGI Checkin service workflow
The integration of new SPs into the EGI Checkin service is performed in two step. The first step is the testing the registration of the SP and use the EGI Checkin to perform authentication and authorization to the service. This is done in a test instance hosted at:
- OpenID Connect: https://aai-dev.egi.eu/oidc
- SAML2 metadata: https://aai-dev.egi.eu/proxy/saml2/idp/metadata.php
The steps and endpoints described in the next sections should be accomplished first in the above mentioned instance.
The second step of integration, is the registration into the production instance at:
- https://aai.egi.eu/ - (full URLs are described in the next sections)
Which should replication all step done in the test instance, once all tests and any possible issues are solved.
SAML Service Provider
To enable federated access to a web-based application, you can to connect to the EGI AAI IdP Checkin as a SAML Service Provider (SP). Users of the application will be redirected to the Proxy to log in, and the Proxy can authenticate them using any of the supported backend authentication mechanisms, such as institutional IdPs registered with eduGAIN or Social Providers. Once the user is authenticated, the EGI AAI Checkin will return a SAML assertion to the application containing information about the authenticated user.
Metadata registration
SAML authentication relies on the use of metadata. Both parties (you as a SP and the EGI AAI IdP) need to exchange metadata in order to know and trust each other. The metadata include information such as the location of the service endpoints that need to be invoked, as well as the certificates that will be used to sign SAML messages. The format of the exchanged metadata should be based on the XML-based SAML 2.0 specification. Usually, you will not need to manually create such an XML document, as this is automatically generated by all major SAML 2.0 SP software solutions (e.g., Shibboleth, SimpleSAMLphp, and mod_auth_mellon). It is important that you serve your metadata over HTTPS using a browser-friendly SSL certificate, i.e. issued by a trusted certificate authority.
You can get the metadata of the EGI IdP Proxy on a dedicated URL:
https://aai.egi.eu/proxy/saml2/idp/metadata.php
Attribute release
The EGI AAI IdP Checkin is guaranteed to release a minimal subset of the REFEDS R&S attribute bundle to connected Service Providers without administrative involvement, subject to user consent. The following attributes constitute a minimal subset of the R&S attribute bundle:
- Persistent, non-reassignable, non-targeted, opaque, globally unique EGI user ID (eduPersonUniqueId); this is always scoped @egi.eu
- Email address (mail)
- Display name (displayName) OR (givenName AND sn)
A more extensive list of all the attributes that may be made available to Service Providers is included in the following table:
Attribute friendly name | Attribute OID | Example value |
---|---|---|
eduPersonUniqueId | urn:oid:1.3.6.1.4.1.5923.1.1.1.13 | ef72285491ffe53c39b75bdcef46689f5d26ddfa00312365cc4fb5ce97e9ca87@egi.eu |
urn:oid:0.9.2342.19200300.100.1.3 | john.doe@example.org | |
displayName | urn:oid:2.16.840.1.113730.3.1.241 | John Doe |
givenName | urn:oid:2.5.4.42 | John |
sn | urn:oid:2.5.4.4 | Doe |
eduPersonAssurance | urn:oid:1.3.6.1.4.1.5923.1.1.1.11 | https://aai.egi.eu/LoA#Substantial |
distinguishedName | urn:oid:2.5.4.49 | /C=NL/O=Example.org/CN=John Doe |
eduPersonScopedAffiliation | urn:oid:1.3.6.1.4.1.5923.1.1.1.9 | faculty@example.org |
eduPersonEntitlement | urn:oid:1.3.6.1.4.1.5923.1.1.1.7 | urn:mace:egi.eu:www.egi.eu:wiki-editors:member@egi.eu |
Authorisation
The EGI AAI IdP Checkin provides information about the authenticated user that may be used by Service Providers in order to control user access to resources. Such information includes:
- VO/EGI membership/roles of the authenticated user (eduPersonEntitlement SAML attribute)
- Level of Assurance (LoA)
VO membership and role information
Background
The eduPerson object specification defines the eduPersonEntitlement attribute In order to control access to resources. This is a multi-valued attribute, with each value formatted as a URI (either URN or URL) to indicate a set of rights to specific resources based on an agreement across the relevant communities. eduPersonEntitlement attributes are typically used to assert privileges maintained centrally or remotely rather than within local application-specific user databases.
Syntax
Values for eduPersonEntitlement for use within the EGI environment adopt the following formatting specification:
urn:mace:egi.eu:<authority-fqdn>:[<group>[:<subgroup>:…]]:<role>@<vo>
where:
- <authority-fqdn> is the FQDN of the authoritative source for the entitlement value
- <vo> is the name of the Virtual Organisation
- <group> is the name of a group in the identified <vo>; specifying a group is optional
- zero or more <subgroup> components represent the hierarchy of subgroups in the <group>; specifying sub-groups is optional
- the <role> component is scoped to the rightmost (sub)group; if no group information is specified, the role applies to the VO
Semantics
Each eduPersonEntitlement attribute value represents a particular position of the user within a VO. A user may be member or hold more specific roles within the groups associated to a VO. Groups are organised in a tree structure, meaning that a group may have subgroups, which in turn may have subgroups, etc.
This hierarchical structure implies that if someone is member of a subgroup, then they are also member of the parent group. For example:
parent-group:child-group:member
implies membership in parent-group, i.e.:
parent-group:member
Ownership of any role always implies the member role for that particular (sub)group. However, holding a more specific role (i.e. one other than member) in a subgroup does not imply the same role in the parent group. For example:
parent-group:child-group:manager
implies plain membership in both child-group and parent-group, but NOT:
parent-group:manager
Level of Assurance
Based on the authentication method selected by the user, the EGI proxy assigns a Level of Assurance (LoA), which is conveyed to the SP through both the eduPersonAssurance attribute and the Authentication Context Class (AuthnContextClassRef) of the SAML authentication response. EGI AAI currently distinguishes between three LoA levels, similarly to the eID Assurance Framework (eIDAF). Each level is represented by a URI as follows:
- Low: Authentication through a social identity provider or other low identity assurance provider: https://aai.egi.eu/LoA#Low
- Substantial: Password/X.509 authentication at the user's home IdP: https://aai.egi.eu/LoA#Substantial
- High: Substantial + multi-factor authn (not yet supported, TBD): https://aai.egi.eu/LoA#High
Some EGI SPs have been configured to provide limited access (or not to accept at all) credentials with the Low LoA.
Note: When logging in through the EGI SSO IdP, the LoA is determined based on the selected authentication mechanism as follows:
- Username/password credentials → Low
- X.509 certification → Substantial
TODO: A document describing each LoA will soon be made available.
References
- Shibboleth SP Configuration
- SimpleSAMLphp Service Provider QuickStart
- Simple SAML 2.0 service provider with mod_auth_mellon Apache module
OpenID Connect Service Provider
Service Providers can connect to the EGI AAI using OpenID Connect (OIDC) as an alternative to the SAML2 protocol. To allow this, the EGI AAI IdP Proxy provides an OpenID Connect (OAuth2) API based on MITREid Connect, which has been certified by the OpenID Foundation. Interconnection with the EGI AAI OIDC Provider allows users to sign in using any of the supported backend authentication mechanisms, such as institutional IdPs registered with eduGAIN or Social Providers. Once the user has signed in, the EGI AAI Proxy can return OIDC Claims containing information about the authenticated user.
Client registration
Before your service can use the EGI AAI OIDC IdP for user login, you must set up a client at https://aai.egi.eu/oidc/manage/#admin/clients in order to obtain OAuth 2.0 credentials and register one or more redirect URIs.
Obtaining OAuth 2.0 credentials
You need OAuth 2.0 credentials, including a client ID and client secret, to authenticate users through the EGI AAI OIDC IdP.
You can specify the client ID and secret when creating/editing your client or let the New Client page generate the values for you (recommended).
To find the ID and secret of your client, do the following:
- Select your client from the Clients page.
- Look for the Client ID in the Main tab.
- Select the Display/edit client secret: option from the Credentials tab.
Setting a redirect URI
The redirect URI that you set when creating/editing your client determines where the EGI AAI OIDC Provider sends responses to your authentication requests.
To find the redirect URI(s) for your client, do the following:
- Open the Clients page
- Find the redirect URIs for your client listed under the Information column of the overview table or Edit the particular client and look for the Redirect URI(s) in the Main tab.
Endpoints
The EGI AAI OIDC Provider configuration is available at https://aai.egi.eu/oidc/.well-known/openid-configuration
The most important OIDC/OAuth2 endpoints are listed below:
Endpoint | URL |
---|---|
Client registration | https://aai.egi.eu/oidc |
Authorisation | https://aai.egi.eu/oidc/authorize |
Token | https://aai.egi.eu/oidc/token |
User Info | https://aai.egi.eu/oidc/userinfo |
Claims
EGI AAI OIDC ID Tokens may contain the following fields (known as claims):
Name | Description | Example value |
---|---|---|
sub | An identifier for the user, unique among all EGI accounts and never reused. Use sub within your application as the unique-identifier key for the user. | ef72285491ffe53c39b75bdcef46689f5d26ddfa00312365cc4fb5ce97e9ca87@egi.eu |
The user's email address. This may not be unique and is not suitable for use as a primary key (in the future this will be provided only if your scope included the string "email"). | john.doe@example.org | |
name | The user's full name, in a displayable form (in the future this will be provided only if your scope included the string "profile"). | John Doe |
given_name | The user's first name (in the future this will be provided only if your scope included the string "profile"). | John |
family_name | The user's last name (in the future this will be provided only if your scope included the string "profile"). | Doe |
acr | The Authentication Context Class Reference that identifies the Level of Assurance (LoA) that the authentication performed satisfied. | https://aai.egi.eu/LoA#Substantial |
edu_person_scoped_affiliations (multivalued) | The user's affiliation within a particular security domain (scope). | member@example.org |
edu_person_entitlements (multivalued) | The user's entitlements expressed as group/VO membership/role information. | urn:mace:egi.eu:www.egi.eu:wiki-editors:member@egi.eu |
Services eligible for integration
EGI Operations, as owner of the CheckIn service, must approve every request for integration of new services with the AAI proxy. The approval (or non-approval) will be based on some pre-requisites, the relevance of the service for the EGI community and the available resources to support the integration. The pre-requisites are described in the following sections.
EGI at any time can prevent a service provider to access the CheckIn service
Services federated in EGI
All the services that are operated by Resource Providers federated in EGI federation and that abide to the RC OLA, and consequently to the relevant security policies of EGI, can be SP for the EGI CheckIn service. Fulfilling all the relevant EGI policies makes the service eligible in receiving attributes released by the CheckIn proxy.
Services not federated in EGI
A service not part of the EGI federation can be integrated as a SP in the Checkin AAI Proxy if the institution providing the service commits to all the EGI policies that are relevant to a service provider. By accepting the policies a service provider assures that they will operate the service in good faith, without deliberately exposing the user to security risks, without claiming intellectual property on the data owned by the user, and protecting sensitive data generated by the interaction of the user with the service.
The policies that the service provider will have to accept are available in this page EGI Policies and procedures page and specifically are: