flask-saml2 0.0.1.dev1

Terminology

For a full description of how SAML works, please seek guides elsewhere on the internet. For a quick introduction, and a run through of some of the terminology used in this package, read on.

The SAML protocal is a conversation between two parties: Identity Providers (IdP) and Service Providers (SP). When an unauthenticated client (usually a browser) accesses a Service Provider, the Service Provider will make an authentication request (AuthnRequest), sign it using its private key, and then forward this request via the client to the Identity Provider. Once the client logs in at the central Identity Provider, the Identity Provider makes a response, signs it, and forwards this response via the client to the requesting Service Provider. The client is then authenticated on the Service Provider via the central Identity Provider, without the Service Provider having to know anything about the authentication method, or any passwords involved.

Example implementations

A minimal but functional example implementation of both a Service Provider and an Identity Provider can be found in the examples/ directory of this repository. To get the examples running, first clone the repository and install the dependencies:

$ git clone https://github.com/timheap/flask-saml2
$ cd flask-saml2
$ python3 -m venv venv
$ source venv/bin/activate
$ pip install -e .

Next, run the IdP and the SP in separate terminal windows:

$ cd flask-saml2
$ source venv/bin/activate
$ ./examples/idp.py

$ cd flask-saml2
$ source venv/bin/activate
$ ./examples/sp.py

Finally, navigate to http://localhost:9000/ to access the Service Provider landing page.

Testing

The test runner is pytest and we are using tox to run tests against different versions of Flask and Python. The test can be run locally using tox directly (preferably in a virtual environment):

$ pip install tox
$ tox

License

Distributed under the MIT License.