implementing shibboleth: a publisher’s perspective chris shillum vice president, product...

Implementing Shibboleth: A Publisher’s Perspective

Chris Shillum Vice President, Product TechnologyElsevier

UKSG Briefing Session3-4 April 2006

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Agenda ScienceDirect background Authentication in general The Elsevier view Shibboleth specifics History of Shibboleth at ScienceDirect Where are we now? Update from Terry Morrow: What is JISC Doing? Open issues and the future Questions

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ScienceDirect background

Elsevier’s primary online platform for full-text content

Originally only locally hosted content (1994 onwards) 1999: commercial launch of online platform:

www.sciencedirect.com

Some facts: >2,000 journals, >160 Book Series, 50 reference works Advanced browse and search, personalized alerts, history Extensive article and entity linking, federated searching Supports institutional subscriptions and individual article

purchases

http://www.sciencedirect.com/

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Authentication concepts in general

Traditional authentication technologies IP address checking Username/password

Shared authentication technologies Centralized Authentication Federated or Distributed Authentication

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Authentication in generalIP Address Checking

Pros Supports site-wide access Supports anonymous access Supports walk-ins

Cons Maintenance overhead for customer and vendor Inherently insecure

Open proxy servers/IP spoofing Dependency on network topology

Groups only identifiably if they have their own IP space No native support for remote access

Proxy servers required

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Authentication in generalUsername/Password Authentication

Pros Supports remote access

Cons Nightmare for users Need a different username for every service

Complex administration for remote access No standard between vendors

“Leaky” Usernames can be shared with non-authorised users No easy way to de-activate users when they leave the authorised community

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Authentication in generalCentralised Authentication

VendorVendorVendorCampusCampusCampus Authentication System

CentralAuth.

Database

Auth.Server

Auth.Client

CampusAuth.

DatabaseBatch

Upload

AdminInterface

Campus Administrator

OnlineService

User

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Authentication in generalCentralised Authentication

Pros Little or no IT implementation for customer

Cons Administrative overhead for customer Difficult to maintain sychronisation between campus auth database and central auth database Use different user credentials for central service logon vs campus logon Batch, not real-time (aging technology)

Example: “Classic” Athens (UK)

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Authentication in generalFederated Authentication

VendorVendorVendorCampusCampusCampus

Authentication System

Auth.Client

Discovery/BindingService

OnlineService

CampusAuth

Database

User

Auth.Service

Auth.Gateway

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Authentication in generalFederated Authentication

Pros Allows access to remote services using campus logon credentials No extra administrative overhead for customer Simpler for users

Cons More complex technical implementation for institution Requires agreement on “rules of the game” between all vendors and institutions.

Example: Shibboleth, Athens DA

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Elsevier’s view on Shared Authentication Strong supporter of Shared/Federated

Authentication schemes Fulfils customer needs Win/Win for customers and us (less admin)

Has implemented Athens and Shibboleth We will continue to offer anonymous, campus-

wide access whatever the technology We will continue to offer personalisation (alerts,

favourites, etc.) in exchange for basic end-user registration

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What is Shibboleth? A federated authentication protocol which

enables online resources to be accessed with local credentials

Developed by Middleware Architecture Committee for Education (MACE) of the Internet2 Consortium in the US

Based on standards such as SAML and PKI More info at shibboleth.internet2.edu

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Shibboleth is many things… A protocol specification An architecture Some open-source software which implements

the architecture A project which manages definition of the

protocol, architecture and development of the software

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Shibboleth Software components

Service ProviderIdentity Provider

OnlineService

CampusDirectory

ShibbolethFederation

AssertionConsumer

ServiceWAYF

User

Auth.Service

HandleServer

AttributeRequester

AttributeAuthority

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Role of Shibboleth Federations Act as naming authority for members Gather, maintain and distribute operational metadata

about members Establish trust framework

» in practice by acting as Certificate Authority for SAML and SSL signing certificates

Set common policies for members Vet members Provide infrastructure for identity provider discovery

(WAYF) Define vocabularies of attributes and semantics

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Shib benefits as we see them Replacement for IP authentication for on-site access

which: Removes administrative burden of IP maintenance Decouples customer’s network architecture from

authentication, so allows departmental purchases, etc. Allows personalized access to remote resources using

local credentials Removes the need for users to remember different

usernames and passwords Avoids problems of proxy servers for remote access Bottom line: helps us provide the broadest possible

access to our customers’ user communities

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Shib & SD history: ramp-up… April 2002: Attended DLF/CNI workshop at NYU Held workshops with to involve customers and Internet 2

in the design process: Findings:

Anonymous non-personalized access a must Provide option to personalize if an opaque, unique user

identifier supplied (targeted ID) via normal end-user registration

Needed support for deep linking May 2004: Initial Shib release

Support for a single Federation …initially InQueue Based on Shib v1.1 software

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Shib & SD history: … testing… May-Dec 2004: Pilot test Participants: Dartmouth; Georgetown; NYU; UCSD;

Penn State Pilot aims:

To determine what it takes to get campuses up and running with authentication via Shibboleth.

To determine what end-user issues arise form the Shibboleth implementation on ScienceDirect.

No major problems getting up and running Some issues with attributes, release policies, firewalls

None of the pilot participants rolled out access to broad user community

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Shib & SD history: … production! Feb 2005: Moved in InCommon (US Production

Federation) First vendor to use InCommon in production

July 2005: Multi-federation support released Main issue is branding and Identity Provider discovery in a

multi-federation world Held more design workshops with representatives from

multiple federations around the world Findings:

» Need flexibility in which attribute assertions to request, according to Federation rules

» Main issue is branding and IdP discovery in a multi-federation world

» We have to know which WAYF to send user to…

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The WAYF issue WAYF (Where Are You From) page: from what institution

are you? Normally operated by federation

Multi-federation support means: from what federation are you?

No-one runs a WAYF of WAYFs

End users don’t understand the federation concept … but federations are geographically oriented! Elsevier’s solution: implement WAYF-functionality inside

ScienceDirect Label federations geographically

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Going forward… Elsevier status Increasingly supporting US institutes via InQueue/

InCommon SDSS (UK) - In production with LSE, preparing to roll out

to all federation members Various various stages of pilot testing with five other

European federations SURFnet (Netherlands): completed pilot - now discussion

move to production SwitchAAI (Switzerland) - currently conducting pilot HEAL-Link (Greece) - About to enter into pilot CRU (France) - About to enter into pilot HAKA (Finland) - About to enter into pilot

Interest shown from: Denmark, Sweden, etc.

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The example scenario…

Logging in to ScienceDirect with a local University of Tilburg username and password

Live in production!

Joint Information Systems Committee

JISC UpdateTerry Morrow, JISC Consultant

31UKSG 2006 The JISC’s Shibboleth Programme

What is JISC doing?

Has written to institutions and suppliers explaining JISC’s strategy

Will create a UK Federation

Funding the Middleware Assisted Take-Up Service (MATU)

– provides support for institutions - http://www.matu.ac.uk/

Providing case studies, reports, toolkits and advice

– based on work carried out in its ‘early adopter’ programmes

Making MIMAS, EDINA and other JISC services Shibboleth compliant

Encouraging suppliers to investigate and implement Shibboleth technologies

Funding the provision of the Athens service until July 2008

Funding the development of the Athens Gateways

– support inter-working between Shibboleth and Athens sites and service providers.


Timescales

July 2006: Renewal of Athens contract for 2 years; launch of the Athens Gateways

August 2006: First early adopters to join UK Federation

September 2006: Formal launch of the UK Federation

July 2008: End of JISC contract for Athens

2006 onwards:Nesli2 and other JISC contracts with suppliers will specify Shibboleth compliance


Options for Publishers and other Service Providers

Become a full member of the UK Access Management Federation, using community-supported tools

BENEFITSNo ongoing subscription costs, compliance with international standards and institutional requirements

COSTSInternal effort to implement software, join federation and manage provider attributes

Become a full member of the UK Access Management Federation, using tools with paid-for support

BENEFITSFull support in implementation, compliance with international standards and institutional requirements

COSTSCost of support from supplier and internal effort in liaison between supplier and Federation

Decide not to implement Shibboleth Continue with Athens or other access management solution

BENEFITSAthens providers will have access to the Federation through the ‘gateway’, funded by the JISC at least until July 2008

COSTSProviders using Athens will continue to pay current subscription and licence costs to Eduserv


Options for Institutions

Become a full member of the UK Access Management Federation, using community-supported tools

BENEFITSFull institutional control, skilled staff and accessmanagement solution for internal, external andcollaborative resources

COSTSInstitutional effort to implement software, joinfederation and enhance institutional directories

Become a full member of the UK Access Management Federation, using tools with paid-for support

BENEFITSFull support in implementation and accessmanagement solution for internal, external andcollaborative resources

COSTSCost of support from supplier and institutional effort in liaison with supplier and Federation

Subscribe to an ‘outsourced Identity Provider’ to work through the Federation on your behalf (eg continued use of Athens with the gateways)

BENEFITSMinimum institutional effort to achieve access toexternal resources only

COSTSSubscription costs to external supplier (from July 2008) and internal administration role

Closing RemarksChris Shillum

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Driving Adoption - Federations Standardisation across federations is needed to

ease Service Provider implementation, especially Attribute syntax and semantics Certificates Metadata distribution policy IdP granularity

Advice: do what’s been done before, don’t reinvent the wheel

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Driving Adoption – Publishers and SPs Act now!

Your customers will be asking you for this if they haven’t already

Get involved in the community – shibboleth-users listserv ([email protected])

Understand the concepts and architecture Use the standard open-source implementation

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Driving Adoption - Institutions Decide who owns Shibboleth

Central IT? Library? Administration?

Largest barrier to implementation in establishing central source of identity for all users

Central Admin/HR database? Library patron database? Computing centre/IT user database?

Once you have this, integrating the Shib software is relatively easy

Need a killer-app to drive take-up, e.g. Napster at USC.

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Open Issues and the Future… Technology new, complex and rapidly changing Federations are in very early stages Uptake is key… we are in a critical phase Need to make implementation easier for smaller

customers and vendors Elsevier is committed to making access easier for

users and will continue to support Shibboleth

Thank you – Any Questions!

Further information:

Technology: Chris Shillum ([email protected]) Product Manager: Ale de Vries ([email protected])

End of presentation…

Shibboleth Mechanics

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So what’s going on here?

The Shibboleth framework allows

Identity Providers (IdPs)

to make

Trusted Assertions

about users to

Service Providers (SPs)

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Shibboleth Software components


ScienceDirect

CampusDirectory


AssertionConsumer

ServiceWAYF

User

Auth.Service

HandleServer

AttributeRequester

AttributeAuthority

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Shibboleth Flow - Step 1

User goes to protected resource, e.g. www.sciencedirect.com User requests to be authenticated by Shibboleth Resource passes control to SP’s Assertion Consumer Service


ScienceDirect

AssertionConsumer

Service

User

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Shibboleth Flow – Step 2

SP’s Assertion Consumer Service redirects user to the “Where Are You From” service (WAYF)

WAYF asks user who their Identity Provider is WAYF redirects user to their IdP’s single sign-on system


ScienceDirect


AssertionConsumer

ServiceWAYF

User

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User logs in to their IdP’s single sign-on system IdP’s single sign-on system authenticates user


ScienceDirect


AssertionConsumer

ServiceWAYF

User

Auth.Service

HandleServer

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IdP’s single sign-on system redirects user to SP’s Assertion Consumer Service providing unique handle for session


ScienceDirect


AssertionConsumer

ServiceWAYF

User

Auth.Service

HandleServer

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SP’s Attribute Requester uses handle to request needed information about the user from the IP’s Attribute Authority

IdP’s Attribute Authority retrieves requested attributes about user from campus directory and transmits securely to SP

Upon receiving appropriate attributes, SP authorizes user’s request to access resource


ScienceDirect

CampusDirectory

AssertionConsumer

Service

User

AttributeRequester

AttributeAuthority

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How is trust established? Assertions are signed using PKI certificates

according to SAML standard (Security Assertion Markup Language)

Interactions are SSL encrypted Trust is facilitated by “Federations”

Groups of organizations that agree to deploy Shibboleth according to certain operating principles, sharing common metadata and attribute definitions, etc.

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Attribute Exchange Shibboleth facilitates exchange of attributes in a trusted

manner between Identity Providers and Service Providers

Examples of attributes – range from totally anonymous to personal information

Member of University of Jonestown Member of the Biology Faculty at the University of Jonestown John Smith, a professor in the Biology Faculty at the

Springfield campus of University of Jonestown who’s eyes are blue and hair is grey

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Attribute Policies

Attribute Release Policy (ARP) governed by Identity Provider, and eventually by users themselves May vary per target Service Provider

Attribute Acceptance Policy (AAP) set by Service Provider Defines which credentials the SP needs to provide

access to the Service

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Strong Privacy Protection Service-provider and user-level Attribute

Release Policies Non-personally identifying attributes may be

sufficient to grant access to services “Targeted ID” mechanism

Provides a unique, persistent identifier which is specific to an individual user accessing a specific SP from a specific IdP

Allows personalization while preventing aggregation of usage information across different SPs.

implementing shibboleth: a publisher’s perspective chris shillum vice president, product...

Documents

authentication concepts

gateway slide

client campus

athens da slide

authorised community

remote access cons nightmare

anonymous access

remote access proxy