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Federation Guides › Partnership Federation Guide › Getting Started with a Simple Partnership › Set Up the Artifact Profile for SSO

Set Up the Artifact Profile for SSO

The basic partnership began with HTTP-POST binding for single sign-on. However, your partnership can use the SAML 2.0 Artifact profile.

The configuration for the HTTP-Artifact binding is the same as the configuration for POST binding, until the SSO and SLO steps in the wizard.

Configure Artifact SSO at the IdP

This procedure shows you how to configure the HTTP-Artifact profile for SSO.

Follow these steps:

  1. From the Administrative UI, Select Federation, Partnership Federation, Partnerships.

    The Partnerships window displays.

  2. Select Action, Deactivate next to the entry for TestPartnership.

    Deactivation is required before editing.

  3. Click Action, Modify next to the entry for TestPartnership.

    The partnership wizard opens.

  4. Click the SSO and SLO step.
  5. Keep the existing settings in the Authentication section.
  6. In the SSO section, specify the following entries:
    SSO Binding

    HTTP-Artifact

    Artifact Protection Type

    Partnership

    Leave the remaining settings as is.

  7. Add a row to the Assertion Consumer Service URLs table and use the following settings:
    Binding

    HTTP-Artifact

    URL

    http://sp1.demo.com:9091/affwebservices/public/saml2assertionconsumer

    This URL is the same one used for the POST profile.

  8. In the Back Channel section, select the following authentication method for the Incoming Configuration:
    Authentication Method

    No Auth

  9. Skip the other sections in the dialog.
  10. Go to the Confirm step and review the configuration.
  11. Click Finish to complete the configuration.

Artifact binding is now configured at Idp1.

Configure Artifact SSO at the SP

This procedure shows you how to configure the HTTP-Artifact profile for SSO.

Follow these steps:

  1. Select Federation, Partnership Federation, Partnerships.

    The Partnerships window displays.

  2. Select Action, Deactivate next to the entry for Demo Partnership.

    Deactivation is required before editing.

  3. Click Action, Modify next to the DemoPartnership entry.

    The partnership wizard opens.

  4. Click the SSO and SLO step.
  5. In the SSO section, specify the following entries:
    SSO Profile

    HTTP-Artifact

    SSO Service URL

    Keep the same URL that was configured for HTTP-POST single sign-on.

  6. Click Add Row in the Remote SOAP Artifact Resolution URLs table. Enter the following settings:
    Index

    1

    URL

    http://idp1.example.com:9090/affwebservices/public/saml2ars

  7. Select this entry in the Select column of the table.
  8. In the Back Channel section, select the following authentication method for the Outgoing Configuration:
    Authentication Method

    No Auth

  9. Click Next until you reach the Application Integration step.
Specify the Target at the SP

The Application Integration step is where you specify the target resource and how CA SiteMinder® redirects the user to the target resource.

Follow these steps:

  1. Select No Data for the Redirect Mode field.
  2. Specify the target resource at the SP in the Target field.

    In this sample partnership, this target is:

    http://spapp.demo.com:80/spsample/welcome.html

  3. Ignore the remaining sections of the dialog.
  4. Click Next to move to the Confirm step.

Test the Partnership (Artifact SSO)

When each side of the partnership is operating, test single sign-on between the two partners.

When IdP1 receives the request, it generates the artifact. The artifact is then sent to the SP1.

After SP1 receives the artifact, it redirects the request back to IdP1. The IdP retrieves the assertion and returns it to SP1.

Create a Web page to Initiate Single Sign-on (Artifact)

For testing purposes, create your own html page with a link that initiates single sign-on. You can initiate single sign-on from the IdP or SP. This example illustrates SP-initiated single sign-on.

Follow these steps:

  1. Create the sample HTML page at the SP site and include a hard-coded link to the AuthnRequest service at the SP, as follows:

    <a href="http://sp1.demo.com:9091/affwebservices/public/
    saml2authnrequest?ProviderID=idp1.example.com:9090&
    ProtocolBinding=urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-Artifact>
    Link for ARTIFACT Single Sign-on</a>

    This link instructs the AuthnRequest Service to redirect the user to the specified Identity Provider to retrieve the user authentication context.

  2. Save the web page under the name testartifact.html.
  3. Copy testartifact.html to the web server document root directory, under the subfolder /spsample.

    For this sample network, the target web server is http://spapp.demo:80.

Create a Target Resource

The last step that is required to test single sign-on is to create a target resource.

Follow these steps:

  1. Create the sample HTML page at the SP site and include a message, such as:

    <p>Welcome to SP1</p>

    <p>Single Sign-on is successful</p>

  2. Save the web page under the name welcome.html.
  3. Copy welcome.html to the web server document root directory, under the subfolder /spsample.

    For this sample network, the target web server is http://spapp.demo.com:80.

Test Artifact Single Sign-on

After you have set up the sample web pages, test single sign-on and verify that the partnership configuration is successful.

Follow these steps:

  1. Verify that both sides of the partnership are activated.
  2. Open up a browser.
  3. Enter the URL for the web page that triggers single sign-on, as follows:

    http://spapp.demo.com:80/spsample/testartifact.html

    Note: The target web server is a different server than the one where CA SiteMinder® resides.

    When entering the URL, a page is displayed with a link that reads Link to Test ARTIFACT Single Sign-on.

  4. Click Link to Test ARTIFACT Single Sign-on and single sign-on is initiated.

    The user is redirected from the SP to the Identity Provider.

After the Identity Provider establishes a session, it directs the user back to the target resource at the Service Provider, which is welcome.html. You see the sample welcome page that you created at the SP. The displayed page lets you know single sign-on was successful.