Federated Identity Management: The Shibboleth Approach Renee Woodten Frost Internet2 Middleware and Security University of Michigan 22 March 2005

Federated Identity Management: The Shibboleth Approach

Renee Woodten Frost Internet2 Middleware and Security

University of Michigan

22 March 2005

22 Mar 2005 Midwest Regional 2

• Copyright Renee Woodten Frost, 2005. This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author.


Topics

• What is Identity Management (IdM)? Federated IdM?

• What is Shibboleth? • Why Shibboleth?• Federations

– InQueue– InCommon

• For more information


Identity Management (IdM)Set of standards, policies, procedures, and

technologies that provide electronic credentials to individuals and maintain authoritative information about the holders of those credentials . . and assist in determining and granting access to resources and services . .

• Identity Management in this sense is sometimes called “Identity and Access Management”

• What problems does Identity Management solve?


What We’re All Trying to Accomplish

• Simplify end user access to multitude of online services• Facilitate operation of those services by IT organizations• Increase security• Enable online service for our constituents earlier in their

affiliation with us, wherever they are, and ongoing• Participate in new, inter-organizational, collaborative

architectures and environments


Federated Identity Management

Relying on the Identity Management infrastructure of one or more institutions or units . .

to authenticate and pass authorization-related information to service providers or resource-hosting institutions or enterprises . .

via institution-provider agreements . .

facilitated by common membership in a federation (like InCommon)


Federated Administration

O

RPO

RP

RP RP

Apps CMCM Apps

VOVO

RP

Campus 1Campus 2

Federation

Otherfeds


Federated Administration for HEGiven the strong collaborations within the academic community, there is an urgent need to create inter-realm tools, so . .• Build consistent campus and enterprise middleware infrastructure deployments, with outward facing objectclasses, service points, etc. and then• Federate those enterprise deployments, using the outward facing campus infrastructure, with inter-realm attribute transports, trust services, etc. and then• Leverage that federation to enable a variety of applications from network authentication to instant messaging, from video to web services, and then, going forward• Create tools and templates that support the management and collaboration of virtual organizations by building on the federated campus infrastructures.


What is Middleware?• Specialized networked services that are shared by

applications and users• A set of core software components that permit

scaling of applications and networks• Tools that take the complexity out of application

integration• A second layer of the IT infrastructure, sitting above

the network • A land where technology meets policy• The intersection of what networks designers and

applications developers each do not want to do


A Map of Campus Middleware Land


Core Middleware Scope• Identity and Identifiers – namespaces, identifier crosswalks,

real world levels of assurance, etc.• Authentication – campus technologies and policies, interrealm

interoperability via PKI, Kerberos, etc.• Directories – enterprise directory services architectures and

tools, standard objectclasses, interrealm and registry services• Authorization – permissions and access controls, delegation,

privacy management, etc.• Integration Activities – open management tools, use of virtual,

federated and hierarchical organizations, enabling common applications with core middleware


Internet2 Middleware and the NSF Middleware Initiative (NMI)

• Internet2 Middleware a major theme for last five years, drawing support from 206 university members, 60+ corporate members, international partners and government grants and interactions

• Internet2 has integrator role within NMI, the key NSF Program to develop and deploy common middleware infrastructures

• NMI has two major themes

– Scientific computing and data environments (ala Grids)

– Common campus and inter-institutional middleware infrastructure (ala Internet2/EDUCAUSE/SURA work)

• Issues periodic NMI releases of software, services, architectures, objectclasses and best practices – R6 most current release in Dec 2005


What is Shibboleth? (Biblical)

•A word which was made the criterion by which to distinguish the Ephraimites from the Gileadites. The Ephraimites, not being able to pronounce “sh”, called the word sibboleth. See --Judges xii.

•Hence, the criterion, test, or watchword of a party; a party cry or pet phrase.

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)


What is Shibboleth?• An initiative to develop an architecture and policy framework supporting the sharing – between domains -- of secured web resources and services

• A framework built on a “Federated” model

• A project delivering an open source implementation of the architecture and framework

• Deliverables:–Software for identity providers = campuses (origins)–Software for resource providers (targets)–Operational Federations (scalable trust)


Shibboleth Goals• Use federated administration as the lever; have the

enterprise broker most services (authentication, authorization, resource discovery, etc.) in inter-realm interactions

• Provide security while not degrading privacy–Using Attribute-based Access Control

• Foster inter-realm trust fabrics: federations and virtual organizations

• Leverage campus expertise and build rough consensus• Influence the marketplace; develop where necessary• Support heterogeneity and open standards


Attribute-based Authorization• Identity-based approach

–The identity of a prospective user is passed to the controlled resource and is used to determine (perhaps with requests for additional attributes about the user) whether to permit access.

–This approach requires the user to trust the resource provider to protect privacy.

• Attribute-based approach–Attributes are exchanged about a prospective user until the controlled resource has sufficient information to make a decision.

–This approach does not degrade privacy.


Typical Attributes in the Higher Ed Community

Affiliation “active member of community”

[email protected]

EPPN

(eduPersonPrincipalName)

Identity [email protected]

Entitlement An agreed upon opaque URI

urn:mace:vendor:contract1234

OrgUnit Department Economics Department

EnrolledCourse Opaque course identifier

urn:mace:osu.edu:Physics201


Addressing Four Scenarios• Member of campus community accessing licensed resource

–Anonymity required• Member of a course accessing remotely controlled resource

–Anonymity required• Member of a workgroup accessing controlled resources

–Controlled by unique identifiers (e.g. name) • Intra-university information access

–Controlled by a variety of identifiers

•Taken individually, each situation can be solved in a variety of straightforward ways.

• Taken together, they present the challenge of meeting users’ reasonable expectations for protection of personal privacy.


So… What is Shibboleth?

•A Web Single-Signon System (SSO)?

•An Access Control Mechanism for Attributes?

•A Standard Interface and Vocabulary for Attributes?

•A Standard for Adding Authentication and Authorization to Applications?


Shibboleth Architecture (still photo, no moving parts)


Development Milestones• Project formation - Feb 2000; process began late

summer 2000 with bi-weekly calls to develop scenarios, requirements and architecture

• Linkages to SAML established - Dec 2000 • Architecture and protocol completion - Aug 2001 • Design - Oct 2001• Coding began - Nov 2001• Alpha-1 release - April 24, 2002• OpenSAML release - July 15, 2002• v1.0 April 2003; v1.1 July 2003; v1.2 May 2004• v1.3 Q1 2005 e-auth certified • v1.4 Q1 2006 WS-Fed compliant• v2.0 likely end of the major evolution


Current Status: Shibboleth v. 1.2.1• Open-source, standards-based, privacy-preserving federating

software• Accelerating deployment globally: InCommon, NSDL, SWITCH,

Finland, Netherlands, United Kingdom (three), Australia, InQueue, League of Federations

• Commercial information providers in production: Elsevier Science Direct, OCLC, etc.

• Resource Provider component works with Apache(1.3 and 2.0) and IIS

• Identity Provider component is Java-based for a variety of platforms

• Working on Underlying Attribute Authority GUI and resource protection

• Growing international development interest providing resource manager tools, email list software, etc.


Shibboleth -- Next Steps• Full Implementation of Trust Fabric

–Supporting multi-federation origins and targets• Support for Dynamic Content (Library-style Implementation

in addition to web server plugins)• Sysadmin GUIs for managing origin and target policy• Integration with Grids, Virtual Organizations• Integration with SAML V2.0, Liberty Alliance, WS-Fed• NSF grant to Shibboleth-enable open source collaboration

tools• Integration with P2P - LionShare


Why Shibboleth?Improved Access Control

• Use of attributes allows fine-grained access control

–Med School Faculty get access to additional resources

–Specific group of students have access to restricted resources

• Simplifies management of access to extended functionality

–Librarians, based on their role, are given a higher-than-usual level of access to an online database to which a college might subscribe

–Librarians and publishers can enforce complicated license agreements that may restrict access to special collections to small groups of faculty researchers


Why Shibboleth?Federated Administration

• Flexibly partitions responsibility, policy, technology, and trust

• Leverages existing middleware infrastructure at origin - authentication, directory

–Users registered only at their “home” or “origin” institution–Resource Provider does NOT need to create new userids

• Authorization information sent instead of authentication information

–When possible, use groups instead of people on ACLs–Identity information still available for auditing and for

applications that require it


Why Shibboleth?Privacy

• Higher Ed has privacy obligations– In US, “FERPA” requires permission for release

of most personal identification information; encourages least privilege in information access

– HIPAA requires privacy in medical records handling

• General interest and concern for privacy is growing

• Shibboleth has active (vs. passive) privacy provisions “built in”


Benefits to Campuses• Much easier Inter-Domain Integration

–With other campuses–With off-campus resource provider systems

• Integration with other campus systems, intra-domain–Learning Management Systems–Med School……

• Ability to manage access control at a fine-grained level• Allows personalization, without releasing identity• Implement Shibboleth once…

–And then just manage attributes that are released to new resource providers


Benefits to Resource Providers• Unified authentication mechanism from the vendor perspective

–Much more scalable–Much less integration work required to bring new customers online

• Ability to implement fine-grained access control (e.g. access by role), allowing customer sites to effectively control access by attributes and thus control usage costs, by not granting access unnecessarily

• Once Shibboleth integration completed on vendor’s systems– Incremental cost of adding new customers is relatively minimal– In contrast to the current situation -- requiring custom work for each new

customer• Ability to offer personalization• Enables attribute-based Service Level Model• If universities have Shibboleth implemented already, easy implementation for

them


What are Federations?• Associations of enterprises that come together to

exchange information about their users and resources in order to enable collaborations and transactions

• Enroll and authenticate and attribute locally, act federally.

• Uses federating software (e.g. Liberty Alliance, Shibboleth, WS-*) common attributes (e.g. eduPerson), and a security and privacy set of understandings

• Enterprises (and users) retain control over what attributes are released to a resource; the resources retain control (though they may delegate) over the authorization decision.

• Several federations now in construction or deployment


Business drivers for R&E (again)Given the strong collaborations within the academic community,

there is an urgent need to create inter-realm tools, so

• Build consistent campus middleware infrastructure deployments, with outward facing objectclasses, service points, etc. and then

• Federate (multilateral) those enterprise deployments with inter-realm attribute transports, trust services, etc. and then

• Leverage that federation to enable a variety of applications from network authentication to instant messaging, from video to web services, from p2p to virtual organizations, etc. while we

• Be cautious about the limits of federations and look for alternative fabrics where appropriate.


Policy Basics for Federations• Enterprises that participate need to establish a trusted

relationship with the operator of the federation; in small or bilateral federations, often one of the participants operates the federation

• Participants need to establish trust with each other on a per use or per application basis, balancing risk with the level of trust

• Participants need to agree on the syntax and semantics of the information to be shared

• Privacy issues must be addressed at several layers

• All this needs to be done on scalable basis, as number of participants grow and number of federations grow


Unified Field Theory of Trust• Bridged, global hierarchies of identification-oriented,

often government-based trust: laws, identity tokens, etc.– Passports, drivers licenses – Future is typically PKI oriented

• Federated enterprise-based trust: leverages one’s security domain; often role-based– Enterprise does authentication and attributes– Federations of enterprises exchange assertions (identity & attributes)

• Peer-to-peer trust: ad hoc, small locus personal trust– A large part of our non-networked lives– New technology approaches to bring this into the electronic world.– Distinguishing P2P apps architecture from P2P trust

• Virtual organizations cross-stitch across one of the above


Federal Guidelines of Relevance

• NIST Guideline on Risk Assessment Methodologies

• NIST Guideline on Authentication

Technologies and their strengths• Federal e-Authentication


Shibboleth-based Federations• InQueue• InCommon• Club Shib• Swiss Education and Research Network

(SWITCH)• National Science Digital Library (NSDL)------------------------------------• State networks• Medical networks• Financial aid networks• Life-long learning communities


The Research and EducationFederation Space

REFCluster

InQueue(a starting point)

InCommon

SWITCH

The ShibResearch Club

Other national nets

Other clusters

Other potential USR+E feds

State of Penn Fin Aid Assoc

NSDL

Slippery slope- Med Centers, etc

Indiana


InQueue• The “holding pond”• Is a persistent federation with “passing-through”

membership…• Operational today. Can apply for membership via

http://shibboleth.internet2.edu/ InQueue Federation guidelines; approximately 150 participants

• Requires eduPerson attributes• Operated by Internet2; open to almost anyone using

Shibboleth in an R&E setting or not…• Fees and service profile to be established shortly:

cost-recovery basis


InQueue Origins 2.12.04•Rutgers University•University of Wisconsin•New York University•Georgia State University•University of Washington•University of California •University at Buffalo•Dartmouth College•Michigan State University•Georgetown•Duke•The Ohio State University•UCLA•Internet2•Carnegie Mellon University

•National Research Council of Canada

•Columbia University

•University of Virginia

•University of California, San Diego

•Brown University

•University of Minnesota

•Penn State University

•Cal Poly Pomona

•London School of Economics

•University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

•University of Colorado at Boulder

•UT Arlington

•UTHSC-Houston

•University of Michigan

•University of Rochester

•University of Southern California


Federation• A permanent federation for the R&E US sector• Federation operations – Internet2• Federating software – Shibboleth 1.2 and above • Federation data schema - eduPerson200210 or later

and eduOrg200210 or later • Federated approach to security & privacy with posted

policies• Became fully operational mid-September, with several

early entrants shaping the policy & process issues.• Precursor federation, InQueue, in operation for about a

year, feeds into InCommon http://www.incommonfederation.org


Principles

• Support the R&E community in inter-institutional collaborations

• InCommon itself operates at a high level of security and trustworthiness

• InCommon requires its participants to post their relevant operational procedures on identity management, privacy, etc

• InCommon will be constructive and help its participants move to higher levels of assurance as applications warrant

• InCommon will work closely with other national and international federations


Uses• Institutional users acquiring content from popular

providers (Napster, etc.) and academic providers (Elsevier, OCLC, JSTOR, EBSCO, Pro-Quest, etc.)

• Institutions working with outsourced service providers, e.g. grading services, scheduling systems (Blackboard, WebCT, WebAssign, etc.)

• Inter-institutional collaborations, including shared courses and students, research computing sharing, etc.

• (Shared network security monitoring, interactions between students and federal applications, peering with international activities, etc.)


Trust in - Initial• Members trust the federated operations to perform its

activities well – The operator (Internet2) posts its procedures, attempts to

execute them faithfully, and makes no warranties

– Enterprises read the procedures and decide if they want to become members

• Origins and targets trust each other bilaterally in out-of-band or no-band arrangements– Origins trust targets dispose of attributes properly

– Targets trust origins to provide attributes accurately

– Risks and liabilities managed by end enterprises, in separate ways


Trust - Ongoing• Use trust Build trust cycle

• Clearly need consensus levels of I/A• Multiple levels of I/A for different needs

– Two factor for high-risk– Distinctive requirements (campus in Bejing or

France, distance ed, mobility)

• Standardized data definitions unclear• Audits unclear• International issues


Management• Operational services by Internet2

– Member services (Application, etc)– Backroom (Certificate Authority, WAYF service, etc.)

• Governance – Steering Committee: Carrie Regenstein, Chair (Wisconsin), Jerry

Campbell (USC), Lev Gonick (CWRU), Clair Goldsmith (Texas System), Ken Klingenstein (Internet2), Mark Luker (EDUCAUSE), Tracy Mitrano (Cornell), Susan Perry (Mellon), Mike Teets (OCLC), David Yakimischak (JSTOR)

– Two Steering Committee working groups • Policy: Tracy Mitrano, Chair• Communication, Membership, Pricing/Packaging: Susan Perry, Chair

– Technical Advisory Group: Scott Cantor (OSU), Steven Carmody (Brown), Bob Morgan (Washington), Renee Shuey (PSU)

• Initially an LLC and likely to take 501(c)3 status


Documents (to date)

• Membership criteria• Pricing/packaging cost recovery model • Federation Operating Practices and Procedures

and Technical Operations Docs • Participant Agreement• Participant Operational Practice (POP)


Participants• Two types of participants:

– Higher ed institutions - .edu-ish requirements– Resource providers – commercial partners sponsored by

higher ed institutions, e.g. content providers, outsourced service providers, etc

• Participants can function in roles of identity providers and/or resource providers– Higher ed institutions are primarily identity (credential)

providers, with the potential for multiple service providers on campus

– Resource (service) providers are primarily offering a limited number of services, but can serve as credential providers for their employees as well


Pricing• Goals

– Cost recovery

– Manage federation “stress points”

• Prices– Application Fee: $700 (largely enterprise I/A, db)

– Yearly Fee• Higher Ed participant: $1000 per identity management system

• Sponsored participant: $1000

• All participants: 20 ResourceProviderIds included; additional ResourceProviderIds available at $50 each per year, available in bundles of 20


Operations• Operational services by Internet2

– Storefront (process maps, application process) – Backroom (CA, WAYF service, etc.)– Federation Operating Practices and Procedures

(FOPP)

• InCommon Process Technical Advisory– Scott Cantor, OSU– Jim Jokl, University of Virginia– RL Bob Morgan, University of Washington – Jeff Schiller, MIT

• Key Signing Party – March 30, 2004 in Ann Arbor– Videotaped and witnessed


Operations Docs• InCommon_Federation_Disaster_Recovery_Procedures_ver_0.1

– An outline of the procedures to be used if there is a disaster with the InCommon Federation.

• Internet2_InCommon_Federation_Infrastructure_Technical_Reference_ver_0.2 – Document describing the federation infrastructure.

• Internet2_InCommon_secure_physical_storage_ver_0.2 – List of the physical objects and logs that will be securely

stored. • Internet2_InCommon_Technical_Operations_steps_ver_0.35

– This document lists the steps taken from the point of submitting CSR, Metadata, and CRL to issuing a signed cert, generation of signed metadata, and publishing the CRL.

• Internet2_InCommon_Technical_Operation_Hours_ver_0.12 – Documentation of the proposed hours of operations.


CA Operations Docs• CA_Disaster_Recovery_Procedure_ver_0.14

– An outline of the procedures to be used if there is a disaster with the CA. • cspguide

– Manual of the CA software planning to use. • InCommon_CA_Audit_Log_ver_0.31

– Proposed details for logging related to the CA. • Internet2_InCommon_CA_Disaster_Recovery_from_root_key_com

promise_ver_0.2 – An outline of the procedures to be used if there is a root key

compromise with the CA. • Internet2_InCommon_CA_PKI-Lite_CPS_ver_0.61

– Draft of the PKI-Lite CPS. • Internet2_InCommon_CA_PKI-Lite_CP_ver_0.21

– Draft of the PKI-Lite CP. • Internet2_InCommon_Certificate_Authority_for_the_InCommon_Fe

deration_System_Technical_Reference_ver_0.41 – Document describing the CA.


Key Signing Process• 2. Hardware descriptions

a. Hardware will be laptop and spare laptop with no network capabilities, thumb drive, CDRW drive, media for necessary software 3. Software descriptions a. OS, OpenSSL, CSP, Java tools for meta data 4. Log into computer 5. Generation of the CA Private Root key and self-signing 6. Generation of the Metadata signing key 7. Generate CSR for Internet2 origin 8. Signing of new metadata sites and trusts files 9. Backup copies of all private keys and other operational backup data are generated. 10. Verify CD's and MD5 checksum 11. Write down passphrase and put in envelopes and sign envelopes 12. Securely store CA hardware and contents of local safe in safe 13. Log that these actions occurred on the log in safe and then close and lock the safe 14. Put thumb drive into secure db and copy data onto secure db 15. Take private key password archive and other contents to Private Key Password safe deposit box and record in log that this was done. 16. Take operational data archive to Operation Data safe deposit box and record in log that this was done.


The Potential for • The federation as a networked trust facilitator

• Needs to scale in two fundamental ways– Policy underpinnings need to move to normative

levels among the members; “post and read” is a starting place…

– Inter-federation issues need to be engineered; we are trying to align structurally with emerging federal recommendations

• Needs to link with PKI and with federal and international activities

• If it does scale and grow, it could become a most significant component of cyberinfrastructure…


, some time from now

• Established with several hundred participants

• Multi-layered strength-of-trust threads among participants

• Working with state and/or regional federations

• “Peering” with national federations in other countries

• “Gateways” with commercial federations


Acknowledgements

• Design Team: David Wasley (retired U of C); RL ‘Bob’ Morgan (Washington); Keith Hazelton (Wisconsin - Madison); Marlena

Erdos (IBM/Tivoli); Steven Carmody (Brown); Scott Cantor (Ohio State)

• Important Contributions from: Ken Klingenstein (Internet2); Michael Gettes (Duke), Scott Fullerton (Wisconsin - Madison)

• Coding: Derek Atkins (MIT), Parviz Dousti (CMU), Scott Cantor (OSU), Walter Hoehn (Columbia/U of Memphis)


For More Information

• Websites

http://middleware.internet2.edu

http://shibboleth.internet2.edu

http:/www.incommonfederation.org

Renee Woodten Frost [email protected]