Local IDP
Tags: beginners
Published: 2023-02-12 19:29:34

As per [issue 105](https://github.com/Seneca-CDOT/starchart/issues/105) and [PR 174](https://github.com/Seneca-CDOT/starchart/pull/174), we have a docker container that will act as a local IDP with a few users it recognizes that it will return SAML response claims for.

## Ctrl + C the foundation
For our purposes in Starchart we intend to use a SAML auth flow similar to how we had it in Telescope, we are using Remix and SAMLIFY instead of passport SAML however and this will prove to be a little different as I get into writing the SAML server next week, but there is a lot of cross over in what we will have to work with. For example in both cases we will have to have a local IDP that will provide us with a SAML response that contains all the claims that we expect to receive from Microsoft Active Directory in production (more or less). The configuration we have in Telescope is that of a docker container that exposes simpleSAMLphp on PORT 8081 upon which we can access the mock IDP and the xml metadata we need to be able to work with it. The following is an example of the format the metadata file takes:

```
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<md:EntityDescriptor xmlns:md="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:metadata" xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#" entityID="http://localhost:8081/simplesaml/saml2/idp/metadata.php">
  <md:IDPSSODescriptor protocolSupportEnumeration="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:protocol">
    <md:KeyDescriptor use="signing">
      <ds:KeyInfo xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#">
        <ds:X509Data>
          <ds:X509Certificate>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</ds:X509Certificate>
        </ds:X509Data>
      </ds:KeyInfo>
    </md:KeyDescriptor>
    <md:KeyDescriptor use="encryption">
      <ds:KeyInfo xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#">
        <ds:X509Data>
          <ds:X509Certificate>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</ds:X509Certificate>
        </ds:X509Data>
      </ds:KeyInfo>
    </md:KeyDescriptor>
    <md:SingleLogoutService Binding="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-Redirect" Location="http://localhost:8081/simplesaml/saml2/idp/SingleLogoutService.php"/>
    <md:NameIDFormat>urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:persistent</md:NameIDFormat>
    <md:SingleSignOnService Binding="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-Redirect" Location="http://localhost:8081/simplesaml/saml2/idp/SSOService.php"/>
  </md:IDPSSODescriptor>
</md:EntityDescriptor>
```

and all of this information is stood up for us on a url that we can pull it from `http://localhost:8081/simplesaml/saml2/idp/metadata.php`.

## Next Steps

Now that we have a test IDP we can configure our starchart program to be an SP that works with bindings to it so that when we sign in it will redirect to the IDP and then once the user info is passed to the IDP it will return a SAML response with claims about the user that we can use as a service provider to allow them access to our application. This will be done through SAMLIFY, I am thinking that the IDP can be configured with something similar to the following except replacing the path with a path to the xml to our simpleSAMLphp IDP 

```
const idp = saml.IdentityProvider({
  metadata: fs.readFileSync('./metadata/onelogin_metadata_486670.xml')
});
```

and we can configure Starchart as a service provider in code and generate the SP XML and then expose the metadata to the public as per the following docs: https://samlify.js.org/#/configuration. This is similar to what is done in Telescope under SSO in the Authentication and Saml-Metadata files.

## Ensuing work from this week's PR
This week's PR lead to the creation of the following [issue](https://github.com/Seneca-CDOT/starchart/issues/175) so that we can have a few existing users associated with the mock IDP users so that we can test existing users returning and one or two users in the IDP that we test as first time users of the application.

Also I have yet to add documentation on the Mock IDP and the users that we have configured for use currently.

The IDP itself is not really being used by starchart yet so I am debating doing the SSO flow to see it work first before documenting but there's no real reason I can't do both.