SAML Integration

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This tutorial is part of the SAML Series.

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Category: Advanced

Difficulty: 5 out of 5

Duration: 60 minutes

1. Overview 2. Shibboleth Guides 3. Install Shibboleth - Example A 4. Install Shibboleth - Example B 5. Configure Shibboleth 6. Review SP attribute-filter.xml file 7. Attribute Based Authorisation 8. Configure Apache 9. Start services and check logs 10. Configure the application 11. Links 12. Next Steps

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Install Shibboleth - Example B


Dockerizing Shib-SP

This tutorial will guide you through how to create a Docker image for a Shibboleth Service Provider (SP) application and configure it to run in a container.

Please note, this is a proof of concept and only configures Shibboleth SP. Apache will need to be installed and configured to get the app to respond to web requests. See the shibboleth documentation for more information.


A Dockerfile is a text file that contains a set of instructions for building a Docker image. In this case, we are creating a Dockerfile for a Shibboleth-Service Provider application.

# Use Amazon Linux 2 as base image (alternative lightweight distributions include Debian, CentOS, Fedora or Ubuntu).
FROM amazonlinux:2

# Add Shibboleth repository - To obtain a copy of a repository file for your system, visit https://shibboleth.net/downloads/service-provider/RPMS/ and select the appropriate platform.
RUN echo -e "[shibboleth]\n\
name=Shibboleth (amazonlinux2)\n\
# Please report any problems to https://shibboleth.atlassian.net/jira\n\
type=rpm-md\n\
mirrorlist=https://shibboleth.net/cgi-bin/mirrorlist.cgi/amazonlinux2\n\
gpgcheck=1\n\
gpgkey=https://shibboleth.net/downloads/service-provider/RPMS/repomd.xml.key\n\
        https://shibboleth.net/downloads/service-provider/RPMS/cantor.repomd.xml.key\n\
enabled=1" > /etc/yum.repos.d/shibboleth.repo

# Update packages and install Shibboleth using the `yum` package manager. `yum clean all` cleans up the package cache after the installation reducing the size of the resulting Docker image.
RUN yum install -y shibboleth && yum clean all

# Change logging configuration of Shibboleth to output to console instead of a file. This is useful for viewing Shibboleth errors when running the container.
RUN sed -i 's|var/log/shibboleth.*|/proc/self/fd/1|' /etc/shibboleth/shibd.logger

# Copy Shibboleth configuration files into the container. The `shibboleth2.xml` file contains the Shibboleth configuration settings, while the `attribute-map.xml` file contains the attribute mapping rules.
COPY shibboleth2.xml /etc/shibboleth/shibboleth2.xml
COPY attribute-map.xml /etc/shibboleth/attribute-map.xml

# Copy the secrets folder containing the SSL certificate and key files required for Shibboleth to communicate securely with the Identity Provider.
COPY secrets /etc/shibboleth/secrets

# Set read permissions for the secrets folder. This is necessary to allow Shibboleth to read the SSL certificate and key files.
RUN chmod -R 444 /etc/shibboleth/secrets

# Specifies the command to run when the container is started. In this case, the Shibboleth daemon (`shibd`) is started.
CMD ["/usr/sbin/shibd"]

Up Next:

5. Configure Shibboleth