OpenSAML user discussion

[Chad La Joie <>]

Nah, you didn't miss it, I should have explained it.

There are two requirements that I couldn't meet with a system like Axis.

First, I need something that gave me direct control of the entire 
message payload so that I could implement specific profiles of the 
various specs (SOAP, WS-Security, etc) and choose when certain events 
occurred (like signing).  I have learned through all this work that for 
XML to really work well your tools need a whole document view (not just 
a snippet) for anything beyond the most basic of operations.

Second, I needed a system that was portable across containers Java 
environments and, as Scott mentioned, into C++.

I couldn't find a library out there that let me do both.  The closest I 
found was XFire by Codehaus but I still didn't have the level of access 
to the messages as I wanted.

I should say that I am trying to write things in such a way that if you 
choose to use Axis or some other similar thing you can.  You just might 
not get all the features and safeguards I'm trying to build into the code.

Tim Freeman wrote:
> On Tue, 06 Jun 2006 13:31:10 -0400
> Chad La Joie 
> <>
>  wrote:
>
> > Let me apologize for not having sent out an update in a while.  Over the 
> > last month and a half I've been pulled away from code development, but 
> > I'm back at it.
> >
> > OpenSAML 2, Java Edition
> > - Major work on the digital signature support for XMLTooling, which now 
> > supports detached signatures in addition to enveloped sigs
> >
> > - Signature support within OpenSAML for all signable SAML objects
> >
> > - The metadata resolution and caching mechanics have been been 
> > completely redone and a new MetadataProvider system has been added. 
> > This provider allows you to load metadata from multiple locations and 
> > retrieve entity information from loaded data.  This code is still buggy 
> > but should be finalized this week.
> >
> > - A new library, OpenWS, has been created which will hold all our Web 
> > Service related message production and parsing code.  It is to SOAP (and 
> > soon various WS-*) specs what OpenSAML is to SAML.  Currently SOAP 1.1 
> > support has been implemented
> >
> > - Based on OpenWS initial work on Profiles and Bindings has started. 
> > This code is in extreme flux, but some stub code is out there. 
> > Specifically I've started with the ECP profile on top of the Liberty 
> > Reverse-SOAP (PAOS) binding, because I happen to need it for another 
> > project.
>
> Hi Chad, 
>
> First, I'm sorry if I missed an explanation in the past:  I am curious
> about the reasoning behind creating a SOAP library?  Are axis/axis2
> or other efforts inadequate? 
>
> Thankyou,
> Tim 
>
>
>
> > - An initial port of the Shibboleth BasicTrust code has been completed 
> > and incorporated.  Work will continue on hooking this into various 
> > validation points (like signature validation on dynamic metadata).  The 
> > more advanced PKIX trust (known as ShibbolethTrust in Shib) will also be 
> > ported minus its Shib specific extensions.
> >
> > - The library now errors out if the the JVM is using the Sun XML Parser 
> > with an error message that instructs users to endorse a usable parser.
> >
> > - Removed DOMCachingXXXXX interfaces and collapsed them into 
> > XMLObjectXXXX interfaces.  The library is essentially useless if objects 
> > don't hold on to caches of their DOM, so no need to have a separate 
> > interface.
> >
> > Upcoming Changes
> > - Lots of documentation updates to reflect the changes mentioned above
> >
> > - We'll be moving to a new (much faster) subversion server.  The 
> > subversion repository URL will change.  I'll send a note out a couple of 
> > days before this happens, but it will likely occur next week sometime.
> > --
> > Chad La Joie             2052-C Harris Bldg
> > OIS-Middleware           202.687.0124

--
Chad La Joie             2052-C Harris Bldg
OIS-Middleware           202.687.0124