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

After many late nights and tedious editing, I have finished my book on OpenSAML, based on my experiences working with the OpenSAML library. A Guide to OpenSAML is a short book that introduces SAML, the SAML Web Browser Profile and the use of OpenSAML. Buy the book on Payhip! The book has three parts, the first of which …

Why am I getting a exception saying Exception: Apache xmlsec IdResolver could not resolve the Element for id reference while decrypting

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

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 …

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 …