Shibboleth Developers

["David L. Wasley" <>]

Clearly a user in a known environment (e.g. a student going to a 
campus portal or library resource page) can be directed to the HS and 
bypass the WAYF.  Two problems: they might not be a user in the 
"known environment" or they might have eligibilities based on 
identity in another environment.  Also, there might be resources I 
want to use that aren't on my campus's portal or library page.

My idea was really more like setting an environment variable in Unix. 
It would be cool if web browsers had environment "settings" so that I 
could define, for example, HOME-1="UC Berkeley" and HOME-2="IEEE". 
Then I could edit my bookmarks (or better yet, the browser would 
support option macros for bookmarks) to specify 
http://www.jstor.com/shibentry.htnl?userhome=$HOME-1
or http://journals.ieee.com/index.html?userhome=$HOME-2
etc.

In other words, my suggested kludge would be a simple way that 
clueful users could add the "origin" name they want to use to URLs 
that they use frequently.

        David

-----
At 2:07 PM -0500 on 6/30/04, Digant C Kasundra wrote:

> My question would be where does that URL appear
> (http://www.jstore.com/shibentry.html?userhome=UC%20Berkeley).  If
> that's a link somewhere, why not just use the URL that bypasses WAYF
> altogether?  That could also be bookmarked (most browsers let you
> right-click a link and bookmark it).
>
> -- DK
>
> On Wed, 2004-06-30 at 13:17, David L. Wasley wrote:
> >  <flame_target asbestos="on">
> >
> >  We've always said the answer to the WAYF is not a security issue
> >  since a false answer simply results in failure to gain access.  So
> >  why not let the user give "advice" to the WAYF?
> >
> >  This might work in the following way.  When the user first goes to a
> >  new resource, the SHIRE (new term?) could look for a parameter of the
> >  form userhome=<origin_name> - i.e.
> >      www.jstore.com/shibentry.html?userhome=UC%20Berkeley
> >
> >  This parameter would be passed on to the WAYF and displayed as the
> >  "default" origin, er, Credential Provider for the user.  I'd guess
> >  that in 90+% of the cases the user would simply hit RETURN.
> >
> >  If this was supported, then users could "bookmark" the URL (and
> >  optionally add or even edit the userhome parameter) and then life
> >  would be good.  They could have bookmarked URLs with different
> >  userhomes for the various origins that know them, etc.
> >
> >  Just a thought.
> >
> >  </flame_target>
> >
> >         David