SAML SP Integrations

CAS provides built-in integration support for a number of SAML2 service providers. Configuring these service providers is about declaring the relevant properties in the CAS configuration as well as the configuration module below. Each integration, when configured appropriately, will register the service provider with the CAS service registry as a SAML SP and will follow a recipe (that is documented by the SP publicly) to configure attribute release policies, name ids and entity IDs. If you need to, you can review the registration record inside the CAS service registry to adjust options.

NOTE: In the event that special attributes and/or name ids are required for the integration, you are required to ensure all such attributes are properly resolved and are available to the CAS principal.

:warning: Remember

SAML2 service provider integrations listed here attempt to automate CAS configuration based on known and documented integration guidelines and recipes provided by the service provider owned by the vendor. These recipes can change and break CAS over time and needless to say, they need to be properly and thoroughly tested as the project itself does not have a subscription to each application to test for correctness. YMMV. If you find an issue with an automated integration strategy here, please speak up.

Support is enabled by including the following module in the WAR Overlay:



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<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apereo.cas</groupId>
    <artifactId>cas-server-support-saml-sp-integrations</artifactId>
    <version>${cas.version}</version>
</dependency>





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implementation "org.apereo.cas:cas-server-support-saml-sp-integrations:${project.'cas.version'}"





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dependencyManagement {
    imports {
        mavenBom "org.apereo.cas:cas-server-support-bom:${project.'cas.version'}"
    }
}

dependencies {
    implementation "org.apereo.cas:cas-server-support-saml-sp-integrations"
}





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dependencies {
    /*
        The following platform references should be included automatically and are listed here for reference only.

        implementation enforcedPlatform("org.apereo.cas:cas-server-support-bom:${project.'cas.version'}")
        implementation platform(org.springframework.boot.gradle.plugin.SpringBootPlugin.BOM_COORDINATES)
        
    */
    implementation "org.apereo.cas:cas-server-support-saml-sp-integrations"
}

The following SAML SP integrations, as samples, are provided by CAS:

:information_source: Configure Once, Run Everywhere

If you have developed a recipe for integrating with a SAML service provider, consider contributing that recipe to the project so its configuration can be automated once and for all to use. Let the change become a feature of the project, rather than something you alone have to maintain.

Configuration

Allow CAS to register and enable a number of built-in SAML service provider integrations.

:warning: Remember

SAML2 service provider integrations listed here attempt to automate CAS configuration based on known and documented integration guidelines and recipes provided by the service provider owned by the vendor. These recipes can change and break CAS over time.

The settings defined for each service provider attempt to automate the creation of SAML service definition and nothing more. If you find the applicable settings lack in certain areas, it is best to fall back onto the native configuration strategy for registering SAML service providers with CAS which would depend on your service registry of choice.

The SAML2 service provider supports the following settings:

Name Description
metadata Location of metadata for the service provider (i.e URL, path, etc)
name The name of the service provider registered in the service registry.
description The description of the service provider registered in the service registry.
name-id-attribute Attribute to use when generating name ids for this service provider.
name-id-format The forced NameID Format identifier (i.e. urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:emailAddress).
attributes Attributes to release to the service provider, which may virtually be mapped and renamed.
signature-location Signature location to verify metadata.
entity-ids List of entity ids allowed for this service provider.
sign-responses Indicate whether responses should be signed. Default is true.
sign-assertions Indicate whether assertions should be signed. Default is false.

The only required setting that would activate the automatic configuration for a service provider is the presence and definition of metadata. All other settings are optional.

The following settings and properties are available from the CAS configuration catalog:

The configuration settings listed below are tagged as Required in the CAS configuration metadata. This flag indicates that the presence of the setting may be needed to activate or affect the behavior of the CAS feature and generally should be reviewed, possibly owned and adjusted. If the setting is assigned a default value, you do not need to strictly put the setting in your copy of the configuration, but should review it nonetheless to make sure it matches your deployment expectations.

The configuration settings listed below are tagged as Optional in the CAS configuration metadata. This flag indicates that the presence of the setting is not immediately necessary in the end-user CAS configuration, because a default value is assigned or the activation of the feature is not conditionally controlled by the setting value. In other words, you should only include this field in your configuration if you need to modify the default value or if you need to turn on the feature controlled by the setting.

CAS takes advantage of Apache Groovy in forms of either embedded or external scripts that allow one to, by default, dynamically build constructs, attributes, access strategies and a lot more. To activate the functionality described here, you may need to prepare CAS to support and integrate with Apache Groovy.

Please review this guide to configure your build.

Configuration Metadata

The collection of configuration properties listed in this section are automatically generated from the CAS source and components that contain the actual field definitions, types, descriptions, modules, etc. This metadata may not always be 100% accurate, or could be lacking details and sufficient explanations.

Be Selective

This section is meant as a guide only. Do NOT copy/paste the entire collection of settings into your CAS configuration; rather pick only the properties that you need. Do NOT enable settings unless you are certain of their purpose and do NOT copy settings into your configuration only to keep them as reference. All these ideas lead to upgrade headaches, maintenance nightmares and premature aging.

YAGNI

Note that for nearly ALL use cases, declaring and configuring properties listed here is sufficient. You should NOT have to explicitly massage a CAS XML/Java/etc configuration file to design an authentication handler, create attribute release policies, etc. CAS at runtime will auto-configure all required changes for you. If you are unsure about the meaning of a given CAS setting, do NOT turn it on without hesitation. Review the codebase or better yet, ask questions to clarify the intended behavior.

Naming Convention

Property names can be specified in very relaxed terms. For instance cas.someProperty, cas.some-property, cas.some_property are all valid names. While all forms are accepted by CAS, there are certain components (in CAS and other frameworks used) whose activation at runtime is conditional on a property value, where this property is required to have been specified in CAS configuration using kebab case. This is both true for properties that are owned by CAS as well as those that might be presented to the system via an external library or framework such as Spring Boot, etc.

:information_source: Note

When possible, properties should be stored in lower-case kebab format, such as cas.property-name=value. The only possible exception to this rule is when naming actuator endpoints; The name of the actuator endpoints (i.e. ssoSessions) MUST remain in camelCase mode.

Settings and properties that are controlled by the CAS platform directly always begin with the prefix cas. All other settings are controlled and provided to CAS via other underlying frameworks and may have their own schemas and syntax. BE CAREFUL with the distinction. Unrecognized properties are rejected by CAS and/or frameworks upon which CAS depends. This means if you somehow misspell a property definition or fail to adhere to the dot-notation syntax and such, your setting is entirely refused by CAS and likely the feature it controls will never be activated in the way you intend.

Validation

Configuration properties are automatically validated on CAS startup to report issues with configuration binding, specially if defined CAS settings cannot be recognized or validated by the configuration schema. Additional validation processes are also handled via Configuration Metadata and property migrations applied automatically on startup by Spring Boot and family.

Indexed Settings

CAS settings able to accept multiple values are typically documented with an index, such as cas.some.setting[0]=value. The index [0] is meant to be incremented by the adopter to allow for distinct multiple configuration blocks.

Note: For InCommon and other metadata aggregates, multiple entity ids can be specified to filter the InCommon metadata. EntityIds can be regular expression patterns and are mapped to CAS’ serviceId field in the registry. The signature location MUST BE the public key used to sign the metadata.