Guidelines

The AARC Guidelines complement the AARC Blueprint Architecture (BPA) and the policy best practices recommended by the AARC project. The guidelines can apply to any topic that helps to advance Federated Identity Management for research and collaboration.

The AARC Guidelines help communities and infrastructures to implement and operate an AAI for research and collaboration more effectively and in an interoperable way.

AARC Blueprint Architecture 2019 (AARC-G045)

The AARC Blueprint Architecture (BPA) provides set of interoperable architectural building blocks for software architects and technical decision makers, who are designing and implementing access management solutions for international research collaborations.
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Expressing group membership and role information (AARC-G002)

This document standardises the way group membership information is expressed. It defines a URN-based identification scheme that supports: indicating the entity that is authoritative for each piece of group membership information; expressing VO membership and role information; representing group hierarchies.
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Attribute aggregation (AARC-G003)

This document discusses attribute aggregation scenarios applied in international research collaborations. Attribute aggregation can take place at proxy, SP or TTS services, in-line with the Blueprint Architecture.
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Token Translation Services (AARC-G004)

Token translation operation might happen “seamlessly” to the user, or it may require an action from the user in order to perform the token translation operation. These guidelines consider consistency of user information, deployment options, security, and transparency and data minimisation.
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Credential Delegation (AARC-G005)

In distributed environments it is often necessary for a remote service to access other services on behalf of a user, or for a software agent to act on behalf of the user. This guidelines consider delegation of credentials based on signed assertions, session tickets, “tokens” of various types, and proxy certificates.
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Best Practices for managing authorisation (AARC-G006)

This document provides best practices for a range of models for Authorisation policy enforcement that apply at service providers end-points, even if not always solely on the resource SP alone, e.g. in the case of an IdP/SP proxy.
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Non-browser access (AARC-G007)

Overview of non-web access mechanisms in common use for both interactive (command-line) access and for API based access. Mechanisms based on ssh, PKIX/X.509, API keys and OIDC are reviewed and placed in context.
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Implementing SAML authentication proxies for social media identity providers (AARC-G008)

This guidelines provides recommendations and best practices for implementing authentication proxies that can connect social media identity providers with federated SAML 2.0 service providers.
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Account linking and LoA elevation use cases and common practices for international research collaboration (AARC-G009)

In Identity linking (account linking) the user’s infrastructure identity is associated with external identities, i.e. created and assigned outside of the administrative boundaries of the infrastructure, such as institutional IdPs or social media IdPs. This linking may be either implicit or explicit to the user. The document reviews use cases and considers consistency of representation, accounting, and traceability of linked identities.
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Best practices and recommendations for attribute translation from federated authentication to X.509 credentials (AARC-G010)

This guideline suggests the common way to encode authentication and authorization in X.509 credentials, to increase the re-usability and interoperability of X.509 credentials generated by token translation services.
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Guidelines for expressing affiliation information (AARC-G025)

The goal of this document is to define how affiliation information should be expressed when transported across AARC BPA-compliant AAIs.
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Guidelines for expressing community user identifiers (AARC-G026)

This document provides guidelines for expressing Community User Identifiers (CUIDs) such that the identifier values can be transported in an interoperable way across AARC Blueprint Architecture (BPA) compliant Authentication & Authorisation Infrastructures (AAIs). The CUID is a subject identifier, where the subjects are generally but not exclusively natural persons..
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Guidelines for expressing resource capabilities (AARC-G027)

This document provides a specification for expressing resource-specific capabilities using entitlements. A capability defines the resource or child-resource a user is allowed to access, optionally specifying certain actions the user is entitled to perform. Capabilities can be used to convey – in a compact form – authorisation information.
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Guidelines on stepping up the authentication component in AAIs implementing the AARC BPA (AARC-G029)

A number of research community use cases require users to verify their identity by using more than one type of credentials, for instance using password authentication, together with some physical object such as a phone or usb stick that generates tokens/pins, etc. At the same time, there are services that
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Guidelines for the evaluation and combination of the assurance of external identities (AARC-G031)

In order to assign an identity to the users of the research collaboration or the community they serve, Infrastructures rely on external Identity Providers and employ identity linking strategies. In order to assign an assurance profile to a user, the Infrastructure shall evaluate the assurance components of the linked identity, or identities, used to register to the Infrastructure’s AAI or used during authentication at the infrastructure proxy. These guidelines provide a method to combine assurance information and to compensate for any lack of it..
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A specification for IdP hinting (AARC-G049)

This document defines a generic browser-based protocol for conveying – to services – hints about the IdPs or IdP-SP-proxies that should be used for authenticating the principal. This protocol, colloquially referred to as Identity Provider (IdP) hinting, can greatly simplify the discovery process for the end-user, by either narrowing down the number of possible/IdPs to choose from or by making the actual selection process fully transparent.
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A specification for IdP hinting (AARC-G061)

This document defines a generic browser-based protocol for conveying – to services – hints about the IdPs or SP-IdP-proxies that should be used for authenticating the principal. This protocol, colloquially referred to as Identity Provider (IdP) hinting, can greatly simplify the discovery process for the end-user, by enabling entities to produce and send hints that can be consumed by SP-IdP-proxies for routing the user to the correct upstream SP-IdP-Proxy or authenticating IdP.
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A specification for hinting an IdP which discovery service to use (AARC-G062)

This document defines a generic browser-based protocol for conveying – to services – hints about the discovery service that should be used for letting the user choose an IdP.
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A specification for providing information about an end service to a Discovery Service (AARC-G063)

This specification defines how SP-IdP Proxies can provide hints about services towards Discovery Services to improve the user experience of the authentication process.
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Guidelines for expressing group membership and role information (AARC-G069)

This document provides guidelines for expressing group membership and role information across AARC BPA-compliant AAI services.
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AARC-G014 Security Incident Response Trust Framework for Federated Identity

Sirtfi provides a mechanism to identify trusted, operationally secure eduGAIN participants and facilitate effective incident response collaboration.
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AARC-G015 Scalable Negotiator for a Community Trust Framework in Federated Infrastructures

The Snctfi framework identifies operational and policy requirements to help establish trust between an Infrastructure and identity providers either in an R&E Federation or in another Infrastructure, in each case joined via a Service Provider to Identity Provider proxy.
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AARC-G071 Guidelines for Secure Operation of Attribute Authorities and other issuers of access statements

These guidelines describe the minimum requirements and recommendations for the secure operation of attribute authorities and similar services that make statements about an entity based on well-defined attributes. Adherence to these guidelines may help to establish trust between communities, operators of attribute authorities and issuers, and Relying Parties, infrastructures, and service providers. This document does not define an accreditation process.
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AARC-G057 Inferring and constructing origin-affiliation information across infrastructures

Conveying affiliation information from origin providers across infrastructures proxies as defined in G025 is only possible if the origin identity provider releases such information. In case no eduPersonScopedAffiliation is provided, it may be partially reconstructed according to these guidelines. If there is no reliable way to infer origin affiliation, no such affiliation should be asserted by infrastructure proxies.
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AARC-I044 Implementers Guide to the WISE Baseline Acceptable Use Policy

Applying the Baseline AUP to concrete use cases may appear straightforward, but there are many edge cases and specific circumstances where it is not entirely obvious how to both achieve the aim of user-friendliness as well as be complete and practical. In this write-up, we try to give hints how to use the WISE Baseline AUP in practice in both community-first as well as ‘user-first’ membership management services.
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AARC-I051 Guide to Federated Security Incident Response for Research Collaboration

This guide collects the experience from the controlled, or ‘mock’, security incident response exercises performed as part of the AARC project. It provides federations and their members with a reference to (i) prepare for a federated, coherent response to security incidents; (ii) recommendations on how to act during an ongoing incident; and (iii) report about the incident and share information with peers.
The informational document captures the experience from the mock exercises and provides a basis for continued evolution of these procedures in the REFEDS Sirtfi working group. … more information …

AARC-G048 Guidelines for Secure Operation of Attribute Authorities and other issuers of access statements

These guidelines describe the minimum requirements and recommendations for the secure operation of Attribute Authorities and similar services providing statements for the purpose of obtaining access to infrastructure services. Stated compliance with these guidelines may help to establish trust between issuers and Relying Parties.
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AARC-G042 Data Protection Impact Assessment – an initial guide for communities

This report presents the results of the desk study on the evaluation of risks to (personal) data protection as considered in the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), for Infrastructures and their service providers that leverage federated identity management (FIM) to connect research and collaboration users.
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AARC-G041 Expression of REFEDS RAF assurance components for identities derived from social media accounts

Infrastructure Proxies may convey assurance information derived from multiple sources, one of which may be ‘social identity’ sources. This guidance explains under which conditions combination of assurance information and augmentation of identity data within the Infrastructure Proxy should result in assertion of the REFEDS Assurance Framework components “unique identifier”, and when it may be appropriate to assert the “identity proofing” component value low.
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AARC-G021 Exchange of specific assurance information between Infrastructures

Infrastructures and generic e-Infrastructures compose an ‘effective’ assurance profile derived from several sources, yet it is desirable to exchange the resulting assurance assertion obtained between Infrastructures so that it need not be re-computed by a recipient Infrastructure or Infrastructure service provider. This document describes the assurance profiles recommended to be used by the Infrastructure AAI Proxies between infrastructures.
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AARC-I050 Comparison Guide to Identity Assurance Mappings for Infrastructures

With a wide range of identity assurance frameworks to choose from, the most appropriate choice of assurance profile for a use case (one that meets both the risk assessment and the social and community context in which the assurance is needed) may be viewed as confusing. The choice of Cappuccino or Espresso from the REFEDS Assurance Framework, Assam from the AARC social media assurance, Birch and Dogwood from the Interoperable Global Trust Federation, Silver and Bronze from InCommon, and Levels 1 through 4 from both Kantara and NIST SP800-63 – all of these merit a policy mapping and comparison framework. In this whitepaper, we identify the implicit trust assumptions (in research and collaboration frameworks, the R&E identity federations, general private sector frameworks and e-government schemes) and present a way of comparing these frameworks. … more information …

AARC-G016 Recommendations on the exchange of personal data in accounting data sharing

Provide templates for policies that operators of different components in the infrastructures can use. It provides updates about the legal context and identifies the minimal set of information needed by the participants in the prevalent use cases. Note: it predated version 2 of the GEANT Code of Conduct, which will revise these recommendations.
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AARC-G013 Recommandations on minimal assurance level relevant for low-risk research use cases

For the risk management of the research services relying on the federated AAI, it is important to determine the assurance level available for the authenticated users. This document defines requirements for a minimal assurance level which is still relevant for low-risk research use cases.
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AARC-G040 Preliminary Policy Recommendations for the LS AAI (application to R&S and CoCo)

The Life Sciences AAI Service (LS AAI), developed in joint collaboration with EGI, EUDAT and GÉANT, will result in a production-equivalent service to be operated for the Life Sciences community by the joint e-Infrastructures. As the pilot enters its second phase the LS AAI has to declare compliance to R&S and CoCo towards the R&E federations. This document provides preliminary guidance for the operators of the pilot LS AAI.
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Future work, beyond the mere project, on policy and technical guidelines will focus on the following topics.

 

AARC-G025 Exchange of affiliation information between infrastructures

This document describes the semantics associated with the use of the affiliation attributes eduPersonAffiliation and/or eduPersonScopedAffiliation when these are asserted by an Infrastructure Proxy when communiting to connected service providers and other Infrastructure Proxies.
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AARC-G028 Requirements and guidelines for federated access to OIDC-based services in the context of research collaboration

This document captures what OIDC-based services need to understand and which schemes to follow in order to benefit from federated identities that currently are exclusively existent in the ‘SAML world’. It includes references to specific mappings between SAML and OIDC expression of attributes, entitlements or claims, and should be considered in conjunction with AARC-G032 “Guidelines for registering OIDC Relying Parties in AAIs for international research collaboration”
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AARC-G030 Requirements and Implementations for Authentication Freshness

This document describes mechanisms for forcing a user to perform an additional login (re-authentication) in order to ensure that the user who is accessing a protected resource is the same person who initially authenticated at the start of the session. Forced re-authentication can therefore provide additional protection for sensitive resources.
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AARC-G032 Registering OIDC Relying Parties in AAIs for international research collaboration

This document describes different ways to accomplish an OpenID Connect client registration, specifically providing guidance for International Research Collaborations that need to implement one of these systems.
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AARC-G036 Roles, responsibilities and security considerations for VOs

Virtual Organisations (VOs) have several roles and responsibilities; some are identified as community responsibilities, and others arise from relations to infrastructures (e.g. security contact, technical contact). Can we minimise the number of places that need this information, in order to improve maintainability and scalability.
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AARC-G037 Combining group membership and role information in multi-AA environments

When combining information from several AAs, one needs to consider the different semantics, different levels of assurance, and different purposes of the AAs and their attributes..
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