An open discussion list for topics related to the eduGAIN interfederation service.

[Lukas Hämmerle <lukas.haemmerle AT switch.ch>]

On 26.01.15 11:36, Tomasz Wolniewicz wrote:
>>> would like to hear it people think about such functionality. If it is a
>>> general feeling that it is of no use then there is no point in
>>> implementing it.
>> Not sure what I'd like to consult that page for. (Unless REFEDS MET
>> never returns, that is.)
>> Furthermore I have the same issues with showing the XML I raised at
>> the beginning of this thread: Displaying unsigned XML for easy
>> copy&paste usage seems to encourage the wrong behaviour.
>> Noone should be fetching XML from there, IMO, so why display it?
> I would think that if we want en entity listing at all then we also need
> a detailed view, the only question being should it be XML, friendly
> listing or both.

Last week I was at the e-Infrastructure for Earth Sciences workshop in
Amsterdam [1] where one of the researchers mentioned that he finds it
hard to see what services there are in eduGAIN and that he wished there
was a human-readable SP list somewhere. I have heard similar requests
from other potential eduGAIN users in the past.
Even though I usually tell them that in many cases just searching and
using eduGAIN SPs won't work unless there is some kind of agreement
between the SP and the user group, I think there is indeed a need for a
bit more extensive information than is already there (which I btw. find
a good start!).

On a general level regarding displaying SP information:
I think what could very useful is - in contrast to write specific code
to display additional entity information - to create an extensible
JavaScript framework that takes SAML2 metadata as input and renders the
complete contained information (names, contacts, logos, requested
attributes, URLs) in a nice and easy to style way. Basically, SAMLMetaJS
[2] but for *displaying* SAML2 metadata only. This potentially could
save other similar SP listings (which there will always be) quite some
work. Especially as it would be a generic (remember, it's only java
script and css).

What do others think about this idea? Do you think that could be useful
and would be used?


On 26.01.15 11:30, Peter Schober wrote:
> I'm having the same issue with SMEV, https://wayf.aco.net/smev/
> (currently unavailable due to a server outage at Univie, it seems),
> mostly due to space constraints.

Great, now MET *and* SMEV are offline, I was just considering to point
to SMEV instead of the unfortunately not very reliable/stable/fast MET
tool :-)


Best Regards
Lukas

[1] https://indico.egi.eu/indico/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=2390
[2] https://github.com/andreassolberg/SAMLmetaJS

-- 
SWITCH
Lukas Hämmerle, Central Solutions
GÉANT Project Task Leader "Enabling Users"
Werdstrasse 2, P.O. Box, 8021 Zurich, Switzerland
phone +41 44 268 15 05, direct +41 44 268 15 64
lukas.haemmerle AT switch.ch, http://www.switch.ch