eLumen is a higher-ed, assessment and curriculum management system that gives real insight into each students’ engagement and progress—while satisfying the growing demands of accreditation and other compliance mandates. As a SAML2 service provider, it can be integrated with CAS running as a SAML identity provider and this blog post provides a quick walkthrough of how to make that integration possible.

Our starting position is based on the following:

• CAS 5.3.x
• Java 8
• Maven Overlay (The 5.3 branch specifically)

CAS Configuration

First, ensure that your CAS deployment is equipped to act as a SAML2 identity provider. Next, you may also use the JSON Service Registry to keep track of the relying-party registration record in JSON definition files.

The JSON file to contain the service provider relying-party record would be as follows:

{
  "@class" : "org.apereo.cas.support.saml.services.SamlRegisteredService",
  "serviceId" : "[entity-id].elumenapp.com",
  "name" : "ELumen",
  "id" : 1,
  "evaluationOrder" : 1,
  "metadataLocation" : "/path/to/elumen-metadata.xml",
  "encryptAssertions" : false,
  "signAssertions" : false,
  "signResponses" : true,
  "attributeReleasePolicy": {
    "@class": "org.apereo.cas.services.ReturnMappedAttributeReleasePolicy",
    "allowedAttributes": {
      "@class": "java.util.TreeMap",
      "uid": "uid",
      "eduPersonPrincipalName": "groovy { return attributes['eduPersonPrincipalName'].get(0) + '@exampl.org' }"
    }
  }
}

A few things to point out:

• You will need to adjust the metadataLocation to match your instance.
• Make sure CAS has retrieved the allowed attributes (i.e. eduPersonPrincipalName, uid etc) listed in the JSON definition file.
• Make sure the SP metadata has the correct entity id, matching the instance.

Finale

Thanks to Paul Spaude of Unicon, Inc who was kind enough to share the above integration notes. If you too have an integration with a well-known SAML2 service provider, please consider sharing that guide in form of a blog post here as well.

Misagh Moayyed