This is a common exception to beginners in using OpenSAML. A common mistake when starting to use the OpenSAML library is to not initialise the library.

When exchanging information with SAML it is highly recommended to sign and verify signatures on all messages. This to ensure the the sender really is how he says he is and that the information sent has not been manipulated during transport. Every SAML object that implements the SignableXMLObject interface can be …

As the post about signing SAML messages discussed, it is very important to properly sign and verify messages in a SAML federation. When verifying a signature of a message it is recommended to first validate the message with a SAML profile validator. This to ensure that the signature follows the standard for XML …

Some helpful examples of projects using OpenSAML

What is it? The SAML Web Browser SSO Profile is one of the profiles defined in the SAML specification. As described in my introductory post on SAML, profiles describes how to fulfill a specific use-case using SAML. In the realm of user authentication using SAML, the Web Browser Profile is very frequently used. The …

OpenSAML can be used to generate metadata. As with reading metadata, the library is pretty straight forward in relation to the metadata XML. This is an example for generating a SP metadata file We start by creating the EntityDescriptor, setting the EntityId and building the SSO descriptor. 1EntityDescriptor …

OpenSAML have several methods for reading and parsings SAML metadata. Meta data is loaded using providers. For example FilesystemMetadataProvider - Used to load data from a file on the filesystem HTTPMetadataProvider - Used to load data from an Internet address Here is an example on how to load meta data using the …

Information and example on how to sign and send authnrequests in OpenSAML

Creating SAML objects This is implementations of some of the methods in the SAMLUtil class referenced in other examples. OpenSAML has a bit struggling way to create SAML objects using a factory pattern. The normal way to create a SAML object is like this. 1XMLObjectBuilderFactory builderFactory = …

For all cryptographic functions OpenSAML requires a Credential which is a basically a cryptographic key wrapped in an object. The Credential can contain either an symmetric key or an asymmetric key not both. The Credential can be created manually with BasicX509Credential and BasicCredential classes and then populated …