Initiative

Authentication IE

The Authentication Interoperability Experiment tested standard ways of transferring authentication information between OGC clients and OGC services by leveraging mechanisms already existing in the transport protocol (HTTP and SOAP). The following mechanisms were planned to be tested: HTTP Authentication, HTTP Cookies, SSL/X509, SAML, Shibboleth, amd OpenID.

Results of the Auth IE are presented in this Engineering Report document and serve as guidance to both implementers and organizations deploying solutions that involve basic authentication. It is the belief of the Auth IE participants that if such a document is made available to the community more OGC implementing products will natively support authentication.

The Authentication Interoperability Experiment will test standard ways of transferring authentication information between OGC clients and OGC services by leveraging mechanisms already existing in the transport protocol (HTTP and SOAP). The following mechanisms are planned on bengt ested: HTTP Authentication, HTTP Cookies, SSL/X509, SAML, Shibboleth, amd OpenID.

The purpose of this experiment to develop a candidate OGC Best Practices document that documents standard ways of performing authentication for OGC services. The document shall describe the technical aspects regarding each authentication method, requirements which are set on the OGC components (ex. support for HTTP authentication, HTTP redirects, etc), as well as use-cases and scenarios.

The Best Practices document shall serve as guidance to both implementers and organizations deploying solutions that involve authentication/authorization/audit. It is the belief of the initiators that if such a document is made available to the community more OGC COTS products will natively support authentication.

Initiative Lead: Jeff Harrison, CubeWerx/CarbonTools

Initiative Leader: Carl Reed, OGC Staff

Participants and Observers

NGA, Initiator/Participant (Clients – Services)
Secure Dimensions, Initiator/Observer
CubeWerx, Initiator/Participant (Clients – Services)
Vightel, Participant (Clients – Services)
The Carbon Project, Participant (Clients)
52North, Participant (Clients – Services)
WhereGroup, Participant (Clients – Services)
EDINA, Participant (Clients – Services)
BRGM, Participant (Clients – Services)
Lat/Lon, Participant (Clients – Services)
DSTL (UK MOD), Observer
German Mapping Authority, Observer
Army Geospatial Center, Observer
Interactive Instruments, Observer
ESRI, Observer