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Fix xmlsec1 --id-attr option
We need to know _the name of the attribute_ that represents the identifier of the node that is being signed, or encrypted, or verified. We guess the name -by trying `ID`, `Id` and `id`- and pass it to `xmlsec1` using the `--id-attr` command line option. _Why is this needed?_ Shouldn't the attribute names be specified by the corresponding specifications? Let's look into the specs to find out. * saml-core: * `StatusResponseType` uses `ID` * `RequestAbstractType` uses `ID` * `Assertion` uses `ID` * xmldsig-core: * `SignatureType` uses `Id` * xmlenc-core: * `EncryptedType` uses `Id` So, the answer is _yes_ - the attribute names are defined and, instead of guessing, we should be passing in the id-attribute names as defined by the specs. _Note_: But, do we even need to do this? If the names are standardized, why do we bother with this? In fact, the manual for `xmlsec1` explicitly says that --id-attr[:<attr-name>] [<node-namespace-uri>:]<node-name> adds attributes <attr-name> (default value "id") from all nodes with<node-name> and namespace <node-namespace-uri> to the list of known ID attributes; this is a hack and if you can use DTD or schema to declare ID attributes instead (see "--dtd-file" option), I don't know what else might be broken in your application when you use this hack However, it seems that `xmlsec1` by default will only look for an attribute with name `id`. The right way to solve this is to pass in a DTD file. Then, `xmlsec1` will understand that it needs to look up a different attribute name. Unfortunately, there are no official DTDs (or even unofficial, to my knowledge) for SAML. The SAML specifications instead provide XSD files. Even though `xmlsec1` mentions _schema_, there doesn't seem to be a way to pass in an XSD file. So, we have to resort to this "hack". When we sign a document, we need to point to the node that will be signed. The nodes that we are signing are always SAML nodes (Assertion, StatusResponseType (Response, etc), RequestAbstractType (AuthnRequest, etc)). All SAML nodes that will be signed use `ID` as the attribute name. So, in order to sign and verify a signature, we need to pass in `ID`. When encrypting a document, we need to point to the node whose content will be encrypted. Currently, we use XPath to point to that node, without the use of an id. But, we could be using an identifier to locate the node, and if we did so, we would still be using `ID`. When decrypting a document, we need to point to the node that contains the encrypted data. This is where things change. Since the SAML node itself is encrypted we cannot point to an `ID` attribute, as we did in the other cases. Instead, it is specified that a node named `EncryptedData` exists, that may have an `Id` attribute. This is where we want to point to. So, we need to use `Id`. Signed-off-by: Ivan Kanakarakis <[email protected]>
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