InCommon metadata support

[Tom Poage <>]

> On Dec 6, 2016, at 1:07 PM, Tom Scavo 
> <>
>  wrote:
...
>> http://mdq-beta.incommon.org/global/entities/foo?format=raw
...
> No, the current implementation does not support that feature but I
> agree that the first option (at least) is a perfectly reasonable thing
> to expect. The second option would be indistinguishable from an
> ordinary request.


Perhaps better that it doesn’t? I’ve been trying to find ways to get 
unknowledgeable (and non-participating) vendors to obtain a 
trusted/verifiable copy of our IdP metadata.

Many vendors, albeit understandably, refuse to download the InCommon 
aggregate. Even if they do, understanding the content and parsing out our IdP 
metadata, often by hand (ugh), and without even broaching the extra 
consideration of signature verification, seems an insurmountable task for the 
typical kind of support person on that end assigned to the task.

I’ve resisted self-publishing our IdP metadata (with or without local 
signature, to varying degrees of success), so the MDQ server seemed a good 
bet. Now to get them to take that small but oh so important step of verifying 
what they download!

And, Ian, thanks for the additional explanation. Helpful.

Tom.