RE: [security-services] Proposed addition to Section 3.3 of Conformance

From
Thomas Wisniewski <>
Date
2005-01-04T21:43:54+00:00
ID
Thread
RE: [security-services] Proposed addition to Section 3.3 of Conformance
Title: RE: [security-services] Proposed addition to Section 3.3 of Conformance

Does it make sense to add a clarification statement around what consumption means (i.e., what it does not imply for  conformance). For example, changing the last sentence in the second paragraph to:

-------------

The remaining identifiers in these sections do not specify normative

processing rules. Therefore, their generation and consumption will only 

be valid when both providers share common values for these identifiers. 

Additional mapping or federation of these identifier formats is 

implementation specific.

-------------

The specific use case I'm trying to address can be viewed with this example:

- a conformant SP: so for a conformance test, the tester selects that the 

SP should be configured to be able to consume X509SubjectName formats.

- the SP can use a programmtic API to map the name in X509SubjectName format

to the actual user somehow. For Saml persistent identifiers, this is 

well-defined. Otherwise this is variable.

What the API maps the value to is implementation specific 

(i.e., it could be associated with the actual cn in the subject name, it 

could be a directly look up of the subject dn, etc...) and not defined by 

Saml.

So it is very realistic that 2 conformant saml implementations that support 

X509SubjectName formats will not interoperate without some out of band 

mappings being set up or some other non-Saml understandings. I guess the 

emailAddress is a better example as 2 providers may very well have their

own email addresses for the same user. 

This led to my stmts above regarding the need for 2 providers to share the 

same id values (as was the case in last year's RSA interop I believe).

I would also like to confirm that support for the persistent name identifier 

and therefore the normative text around it will be required for conformance 

based on the wording changes below. I ask this because on the call, I asked 

if there were any objections to saying that at least this one would be 

mandatory if we narrowed the list. And there seemed to be objections -- so I 

would assume those objections would no longer be relevant.

Tom.

-----Original Message-----

From: Philpott, Robert [mailto:]

Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 1:59 PM

To: prateek mishra; 

Subject: RE: [security-services] Proposed addition to Section 3.3 of

Conformance

Proposed modifications... feel free to wordsmith further...

-------------

Conforming SAML implementations must provide facilities to permit

consumers and producers of SAML messages to support the constants

described in Sections 8.2 and 8.3. These facilities can be provided

through direct implementation support for the identifiers or through the

use of supported programmatic API's that allow the SAML implementation

to be extended in ways that adds support for the identifiers.

SAML message consumers should be able to process messages with constants

taken from Sections 8.2 and 8.3. SAML message producers must be able to

create messages with constants taken from Sections 8.2 and 8.3. Note

that sections 8.3.7 and 8.3.8 prescribe normative processing rules that

must be adhered to for persistent and transient identifiers. The

remaining identifiers in these sections do not specify normative

processing rules.

<need additional text explaining that the consent identifiers are not

MTI>

-------------

Rob.

> -----Original Message-----

> From: prateek mishra [mailto:]

> Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 11:20 AM

> To: 

> Subject: [security-services] Proposed addition to Section 3.3 of

> Conformance

> 

> Add after line 196:

> 

> SAML consumers should be able to process messages with

> constants taken from Section 8.2-8.4. SAML generators

> should be able to create messages with constants taken

> from Section 8.2-8.4. Sections 8.3.7 and 8.3.8

> prescribe normative processing rules for persistent

> and transient identifiers requiring implementation by

> conformant implementations. Sections 8.2-8.3 do not

> specify normative processing rules for any of the

> remaining identifiers. The means by which SAML

> generators obtain and record consent is outside the

> scope of the conformance document

> 

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