Middleware Announcements

[Renee Frost <>]

The Internet2 Shibboleth team is pleased to announce the availability of
release 0.7 of its Shibboleth implementation. This new release contains
many improvements and enhancements, including:

-- A rewrite of the target side implementation. New features include
separation of the SHAR and SHIRE, elimination of the need for Tomcat
unless running a WAYF, and dynamic generation of error pages.
Configuration and functionality are similar to what was found in
alpha-2.5. Most significant code has been placed in a new C++ library
which is used by a stand alone process that manages sessions and
attribute caching (the shar) and new Apache modules for session control
(mod_shire) and access control (mod_shibrm). The old modules (mod_shib
and mod_eduPerson) have been replaced by the new design and should be
deleted. 

-- A new C/C++ based implementation of OpenSAML.

-- Improved support for using an LDAP directory as an Attribute
Repository

-- New extkeytool utility for private key import/export

-- More extensive logging throughout code.

-- An improved, simpler install process.

-- Numerous fixes and improvements, including fixes to utility script and
tool for managing ARPs. NOTE that all current ARP definitions will be
rendered unusable in a future release so be conservative for
now.

-- Shibboleth and OpenSAML can now optionally be installed by building
from source; documentation for this process can be found in the source
tarballs.

With this release, there are separate distributions for origin and target
deploys. Deploy documentation can be found at:

        

http://middleware.internet2.edu/shibboleth/docs/deploy-target-0.7.html

http://middleware.internet2.edu/shibboleth/docs/deploy-origin-0.7.html

This release has been tested on Red Hat Linux versions 7.2
and 7.3, and on Solaris 2.8. The origin implementation is entirely in
java, so there is one package for all platforms. There are separate
target packages for RH and Solaris. The distribution packages are
available from
http://wayf.internet2.edu/shibboleth/index.html

Shibboleth is an Open Source project, and we don't guarantee
support. However, if you encounter problems, join the mace-shib-users
list @ Internet2
(http://middleware.internet2.edu/shibboleth/shib-misc.shtml#mailinglist),
and post a description of your problem; its very likely someone will
answer.

If you discover a bug, please post it to our Bugzilla based repository (
http://bugzilla.internet2.edu/
). Bugs can be posted against a 0.7 product version.

For those who are so inclined, the source is available from our cvs repository ( http://middleware.internet2.edu/opensaml/cvs.html ). Tarballs containing snapshots of the 0.7 source are also available from http://wayf.internet2.edu/shibboleth/index.html . These contain docs describing how to compile the new version.

Lastly, a BIG thank you to the people who helped us test this version, and improve the quality of the overall package, the install process, and the documentation.

Steven Carmody
Brown University
MACE Shibboleth Project Lead




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