[saml-dev] Howdy and a few questions...

Howdy,

 

I’m new to the list hopefully these won’t be
asked and answered. I did a google search and couldn’t find the answers.
I’m working on a SSO solution here at UCSD. We have decided to use SAML
as part of the overall solution. I’m in the process of implementing an
authentication service that will work with all our web based applications and
eventually will also work with mainframe and other fatter apps.

 

My understanding of SAML is that it happens after
authentication has already taken place. Using the browser/artifact profile of
SAML is it evil to set things up so that when a user is redirected to the
Inter-site transfer service that it notices that they have not authenticated
and then prompts them to authenticate before returning them back to the destination
site? 

 

The target element is used to convey information about the desired
target resource. How do we differentiate between a target resource and the actual
url that the users browser is requesting? Should these things be the same all
the time? 

 

What should be the response when a user has not
authenticated or can not authenticate? 

 

Is there  a place that holds a set of example SAML
dialogs running through the standard use cases that I can use to verify my
understanding of the general workings of things?

 

Thanks!

-gabe