Shibboleth

Shibboleth is an Internet2 Middleware Initiative project that has created an architecture and open-source implementation for federated identity-based authentication and authorization infrastructure based on SAML. Federated identity allows for information about users in one security domain to be provided to other organizations in a common federation. This allows for cross-domain single sign-on and removes the need for content providers to maintain usernames and passwords. Identity providers (IdP's) supply user information, while service providers (SP's) consume this information and gate access to secure content.

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In the UK Becta and JISC have a plan to implement a schools, FE and HE federation using Shibboleth to provide single sign on. This means that education establishments in the UK using Moodle should be able to authenticate their users via Shibboleth IF their education organisation joins the UK Access Management Federation and their users' identity is held by the identity provider the LA/RBC use. For Local Authority (LA) schools this will probably mean contacting their Local Authority or Regional Broadband Consortium (RBC).

External Links

Shibboleth Internet2 Website

Current Core Attributes for school sector members of the UK Access Management Federation

Becta Website Technical policy and Standards - Shibboleth Pilots