Shibboleth and PKI

1. Shibboleth and PKI Scott Cantor (cantor.2@osu.edu) April 10, 2003

2. The Blind Man and the Elephant • “How does Shibboleth work with PKI?” • Possible Answers: • It is a PKI. • It can use a PKI for local authentication. • It can use a PKI for authentication to a target. • It can use a certificate in place of a “handle”. • It can use a certificate as a hinting mechanism, or “introduction” vehicle. • Shibboleth/SAML just reinvent PKI, so forget them.

3. PK(i) You Can’t Avoid… • Shibboleth components, in the context of a federation, need to authenticate each other. • Shibboleth could in theory use a variety of technologies (e.g. Kerberos), but in practice uses signatures and TLS authentication with X.509 certificates and RSA keys. • How many are there?

4. Knock, Knock Who’s There? Let me in! SHIRE SHIRE Resource Handle Service Mary abcde12345 SHIRE HS SSL Server HS Signing Key SHIRE SSL Server SHAR SSL Client AA AA Mary, faculty, contract:001 abcde12345 who? SHAR SHAR AA SSL Server High Level ArchitectureKnock, Knock…

5. PK(i) You Can’t Avoid… • Currently a mix of code and libraries performing “traditional” certificate path validation using CA root lists via OpenSSL’s built-in verification. • Specifics of InCommon’s trust infrastructure are yet to be finalized.

6. PKI You Can Avoid(if you want to) • There are no dependencies on PKI as a user authentication mechanism, but no specific constraints either. • We *believe* that most of the common use cases will be met by version 1.0. • There are three different points of user contact defined, any of which could accept a certificate from a user agent.

7. Handle Service(Local Authentication) • There are no requirements about user authentication, therefore client certificates are perfectly valid as a local choice. • In the supported configuration, relies on mod_ssl to accept and validate the certificate. • A Java filter is provided (since 0.8) to manipulate the contents into a principal name for use by the HS.

8. Local Authentication via X.509What does it mean to a target? • Version 1.0 will include an origin property for SAML AuthenticationMethod element. • Asserts the technology used for authentication, but not the “strength”, nor anything about initial identification or CPS. • Addressed in more depth by Liberty Alliance specification as AuthenticationContext. • Has no effect on the subsequent security of Shibboleth from the target’s perspective.

9. Remote Authentication to Target(Not Implemented Yet) • User agent could also present certificate directly to target resource. • Certificate might or might not be personally identifying. • Target might or might not validate certificate in any usual sense (but origin would). • Bypasses WAYF and HS functions.

10. Attribute Exchange and Trust Implications • Attribute exchange and subsequent authorization is largely the same, or it’s not really Shibboleth anymore. • SHAR needs a handle (the certificate) and an AA (not well-defined yet). • Resembles the DLF access control prototype utilizing HTTP/LDAP callback.

11. WAYF? “I just told you.”(Also Not Implemented) • Typical WAYF can remember user’s choice of origin once selected, but has a harder time “forgetting”. • An otherwise worthless certificate could tell the WAYF (or a target) where to send the user for authentication. • Multiple certificates could act as user-selectable routing instructions.

12. Summary • Clarity in discussions is important. • Any time a browser accesses a web server, a certificate *might* serve some purpose, but only local authentication is “understood” or supported. • Connection between a federation’s trust infrastructure and an authentication PKI seems tenuous.