Administration Guide › Configuring the SPS Server Settings › Session Scheme Settings in the server.conf File › Simple URL Rewriting Session Scheme › Enable Cookieless Federation for Rewriteable Session Schemes

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Enable Cookieless Federation for Rewriteable Session Schemes

For the SPS to use rewritable session schemes, such as simple URL session scheme, in a federated environment, configure cookieless federation.

To configure cookieless federation

  1. Open the server.conf file in a text editor. This file is located in the directory sps_home/secure-proxy/proxy-engine/conf
  2. Add the following code to the virtual host section for the virtual host that is serving FWS.

    cookielessfederation="yes"

  3. Save the file.
  4. Restart the SPS.

Note: No separate post filter, such as the CookielessFedFilter needs to be enabled for the SPS federation gateway. This functionality is provided out-of-the-box when you enable the federation gateway functionality. You have to enable this post filter when the SPS is not acting as a federation gateway.

Rewrite FWS Redirects for Simple URL Session Schemes

If you deploy the SPS in a federated environment, one of the session schemes you can at the site producing assertions is a simple URL session scheme. If you use this scheme, you may be required to rewrite the links that direct the user to the appropriate site so that the session key is added to the link. In SiteMinder documentation, these links for SAML 1.x are called intersite transfer URLs. For SAML 2.0, these links are referred to as an unsolicited response or an AuthnRequest link.

For rewriting the links so that the session key information is added to the base of the URLs, a sample post filter, RewriteLinksPostFilter, is provided along with the SPS filter examples. This filter can be compiled and be attached to the appropriate proxy rule, which handles the forwards to the intersite transfer URL, unsolicited response, or AuthnRequest.

The RewriteLinksPostFilter provided with the SPS is a sample filter. You must configure the filter to suit your requirements.

Note: If you use the simple_url session scheme for transactions involving the SPS federation gateway, the session key (SMID) gets added to the request as a query parameter instead of being appended to the URI. However, the SMID gets added to the URI when the final target resource is accessed at the back-end server.