|
| 1 | +# Federation Discovery and Entity Collection |
| 2 | + |
| 3 | +This library provides a high-performance, specification-compliant toolkit for |
| 4 | +discovering entities within an OpenID Federation and interacting with Entity |
| 5 | +Collection Endpoints. |
| 6 | + |
| 7 | +The functionality is split into two main operational modes: |
| 8 | + |
| 9 | +1. **Federation Discovery** — A top-down, recursive traversal of a federation |
| 10 | +hierarchy starting from a Trust Anchor. |
| 11 | +2. **Entity Collection** — A specialized protocol for optimized bulk-fetching |
| 12 | +of entities, featuring support for server-side filtering, sorting, and |
| 13 | +cursor-based pagination. |
| 14 | + |
| 15 | +All components are integrated and accessible through the |
| 16 | +`\SimpleSAML\OpenID\Federation` facade. |
| 17 | + |
| 18 | +--- |
| 19 | + |
| 20 | +## Setup and Configuration |
| 21 | + |
| 22 | +To enable federation discovery, initialize the `Federation` facade with a |
| 23 | +cache and (optionally) a logger. |
| 24 | + |
| 25 | +```php |
| 26 | +<?php |
| 27 | + |
| 28 | +declare(strict_types=1); |
| 29 | + |
| 30 | +use SimpleSAML\OpenID\Federation; |
| 31 | + |
| 32 | +$federationTools = new Federation( |
| 33 | + cache: $cache, // \Psr\SimpleCache\CacheInterface (Highly Recommended) |
| 34 | + logger: $logger, // \Psr\Log\LoggerInterface |
| 35 | + maxDiscoveryDepth: 10, // Recursion limit for top-down traversal |
| 36 | +); |
| 37 | +``` |
| 38 | + |
| 39 | +### Custom Entity Collection Store |
| 40 | + |
| 41 | +By default, the library persists discovered entity payloads using the |
| 42 | +configured PSR-16 cache (`CacheEntityCollectionStore`). If no cache is |
| 43 | +provided, it falls back to an `InMemoryEntityCollectionStore` (ephemeral). |
| 44 | + |
| 45 | +For production environments requiring persistent storage |
| 46 | +(e.g., Database, Redis), you should implement the `EntityCollectionStoreInterface`: |
| 47 | + |
| 48 | +```php |
| 49 | +use SimpleSAML\OpenID\Federation\EntityCollection\EntityCollectionStoreInterface; |
| 50 | + |
| 51 | +class MyDatabaseStore implements EntityCollectionStoreInterface |
| 52 | +{ |
| 53 | + public function store(string $trustAnchorId, array $entities, int $ttl): void { /* ... */ } |
| 54 | + public function get(string $trustAnchorId): ?array { /* ... */ } |
| 55 | + public function clear(string $trustAnchorId): void { /* ... */ } |
| 56 | + public function storeLastUpdated(string $trustAnchorId, int $timestamp, int $ttl): void { /* ... */ } |
| 57 | + public function getLastUpdated(string $trustAnchorId): ?int { /* ... */ } |
| 58 | + public function clearLastUpdated(string $trustAnchorId): void { /* ... */ } |
| 59 | +} |
| 60 | + |
| 61 | +$federationTools = new Federation( |
| 62 | + entityCollectionStore: new MyDatabaseStore(), |
| 63 | +); |
| 64 | +``` |
| 65 | + |
| 66 | +> [!NOTE] |
| 67 | +> The store caches the **JWT payload arrays** of discovered entities. Actual |
| 68 | +> JWS signatures and original JWT strings are managed by the |
| 69 | +> `EntityStatementFetcher` which handles its own caching and validation logic. |
| 70 | +
|
| 71 | +--- |
| 72 | + |
| 73 | +## Federation Discovery (Top-Down) |
| 74 | + |
| 75 | +Federation Discovery performs a recursive traversal of the hierarchy. |
| 76 | +It starts at the Trust Anchor and follows `federation_list_endpoint` links |
| 77 | +to discover all subordinates. |
| 78 | + |
| 79 | +### Discovering Entities |
| 80 | + |
| 81 | +```php |
| 82 | +/** @var \SimpleSAML\OpenID\Federation $federationTools */ |
| 83 | + |
| 84 | +$trustAnchorId = 'https://trust-anchor.example.org/'; |
| 85 | + |
| 86 | +try { |
| 87 | + // Traverse the federation and return an EntityCollection object. |
| 88 | + $collection = $federationTools->federationDiscovery()->discover($trustAnchorId); |
| 89 | + |
| 90 | + // Get the raw map of Entity ID => Payload |
| 91 | + $entities = $collection->getEntities(); |
| 92 | + |
| 93 | + // Convenience: Get just the discovered entity IDs |
| 94 | + $ids = $federationTools->federationDiscovery()->discoverEntityIds($trustAnchorId); |
| 95 | +} catch (\Throwable $exception) { |
| 96 | + $logger->error('Federation discovery failed: ' . $exception->getMessage()); |
| 97 | +} |
| 98 | +``` |
| 99 | + |
| 100 | +### Discovery Logic & Loop Protection |
| 101 | + |
| 102 | +1. **Trust Anchor Config**: Fetches and validates the TA's Entity Configuration. |
| 103 | +2. **Subordinate Listing**: Fetches the `federation_list_endpoint`. |
| 104 | +If filters are provided, they are passed as query parameters to this endpoint. |
| 105 | +3. **Recursion**: For each discovered subordinate, it fetches its |
| 106 | +configuration and repeats the process. |
| 107 | +4. **Loop Protection**: The algorithm tracks visited IDs to prevent |
| 108 | +infinite loops and is limited by `maxDiscoveryDepth`. |
| 109 | +5. **Deduplication**: Entities appearing in multiple branches are only stored |
| 110 | +once. |
| 111 | + |
| 112 | +### Applying Filters During Discovery |
| 113 | + |
| 114 | +You can pass filters (like `entity_type`) directly to the discovery process. |
| 115 | +These are passed to the remote `federation_list_endpoint` to optimize the |
| 116 | +traversal: |
| 117 | + |
| 118 | +```php |
| 119 | +$collection = $federationTools->federationDiscovery() |
| 120 | + ->discover($trustAnchorId, filters: ['entity_type' => 'openid_provider']); |
| 121 | +``` |
| 122 | + |
| 123 | +### Performance: Scheduled Refresh |
| 124 | + |
| 125 | +Discovery is an expensive network-heavy operation. You should run it in a |
| 126 | +background process (Cron) using `forceRefresh: true` to populate the cache: |
| 127 | + |
| 128 | +```php |
| 129 | +// In a background job: |
| 130 | +$federationTools->federationDiscovery() |
| 131 | + ->discover($trustAnchorId, forceRefresh: true); |
| 132 | + |
| 133 | +// In your web application (uses cache): |
| 134 | +$collection = $federationTools->federationDiscovery()->discover($trustAnchorId); |
| 135 | +``` |
| 136 | + |
| 137 | +--- |
| 138 | + |
| 139 | +## Entity Collection Client |
| 140 | + |
| 141 | +The Entity Collection Client allows fetching pre-filtered lists of entities |
| 142 | +from a remote `federation_collection_endpoint`. This is much more efficient |
| 143 | +than full traversal if the remote side supports it. |
| 144 | + |
| 145 | +### Bulk Fetching with Filters |
| 146 | + |
| 147 | +The client supports all standard OpenID Federation query parameters: |
| 148 | + |
| 149 | +```php |
| 150 | +$endpoint = 'https://federation.example.org/collection'; |
| 151 | + |
| 152 | +$collection = $federationTools->federationDiscovery()->fetchFromCollectionEndpoint( |
| 153 | + $endpoint, |
| 154 | + [ |
| 155 | + 'entity_type' => ['openid_provider'], |
| 156 | + 'trust_mark_type' => ['https://example.org/marks/certified'], |
| 157 | + 'trust_anchor' => 'https://trust-anchor.example.org/', |
| 158 | + 'query' => 'university', |
| 159 | + 'limit' => 50, |
| 160 | + 'entity_claims' => ['entity_types', 'ui_infos'], // Request specific claims |
| 161 | + ] |
| 162 | +); |
| 163 | + |
| 164 | +foreach ($collection->getEntities() as $id => $payload) { |
| 165 | + // Process entity... |
| 166 | +} |
| 167 | +``` |
| 168 | + |
| 169 | +### Client-Side Caching |
| 170 | + |
| 171 | +`fetchFromCollectionEndpoint()` automatically caches the remote response |
| 172 | +body. If you need fresh data, pass `forceRefresh: true`. |
| 173 | + |
| 174 | +### Pagination Handling |
| 175 | + |
| 176 | +The `EntityCollection` object encapsulates the `next` cursor for seamless |
| 177 | +pagination: |
| 178 | + |
| 179 | +```php |
| 180 | +$results = []; |
| 181 | +$cursor = null; |
| 182 | + |
| 183 | +do { |
| 184 | + $page = $federationTools->federationDiscovery()->fetchFromCollectionEndpoint( |
| 185 | + $endpoint, |
| 186 | + ['limit' => 100, 'from' => $cursor] |
| 187 | + ); |
| 188 | + |
| 189 | + $results = array_merge($results, $page->getEntities()); |
| 190 | + $cursor = $page->getNextPageToken(); |
| 191 | +} while ($cursor !== null); |
| 192 | +``` |
| 193 | + |
| 194 | +--- |
| 195 | + |
| 196 | +## Server-Side Implementation |
| 197 | + |
| 198 | +If you are implementing your own `federation_collection_endpoint`, the library |
| 199 | +provides high-level building blocks to handle filtering, sorting, and |
| 200 | +pagination. |
| 201 | + |
| 202 | +### The Pipeline Pattern |
| 203 | + |
| 204 | +The recommended implementation follows this pipeline: |
| 205 | +**Discover → Filter → Sort → Paginate → Serialize**. |
| 206 | + |
| 207 | +```php |
| 208 | +public function __invoke(ServerRequestInterface $request): ResponseInterface |
| 209 | +{ |
| 210 | + $params = $request->getQueryParams(); |
| 211 | + |
| 212 | + // 1. Load entities from the Federation traversal cache |
| 213 | + $collection = $this->federationTools->federationDiscovery()->discover($this->trustAnchorId); |
| 214 | + |
| 215 | + // 2. Filter (Standard OpenID Federation criteria) |
| 216 | + // Supports 'entity_type' (OR), 'trust_mark_type' (AND), and 'query' (Search) |
| 217 | + $collection->filter($params); |
| 218 | + |
| 219 | + // 3. Sort (By nested metadata claims) |
| 220 | + if (isset($params['sort_by'])) { |
| 221 | + $path = explode('.', $params['sort_by']); // e.g. "metadata.federation_entity.display_name" |
| 222 | + $collection->sort([$path], $params['sort_dir'] ?? 'asc'); |
| 223 | + } |
| 224 | + |
| 225 | + // 4. Paginate (Using opaque cursors) |
| 226 | + $collection->paginate( |
| 227 | + limit: (int) ($params['limit'] ?? 100), |
| 228 | + from: $params['from'] ?? null |
| 229 | + ); |
| 230 | + |
| 231 | + // 5. Serialize to spec-compliant array |
| 232 | + return new JsonResponse($collection->toCollectionEndpointResponseArray()); |
| 233 | +} |
| 234 | +``` |
| 235 | + |
| 236 | +### Filtering Technical Details |
| 237 | + |
| 238 | +| Criteria | Behavior | Fields Checked | |
| 239 | +| :--- | :--- | :--- | |
| 240 | +| `entity_type` | **OR** (Any match) | Metadata keys | |
| 241 | +| `trust_mark_type` | **AND** (All must match) | `trust_marks[].id` | |
| 242 | +| `query` | **Case-Insensitive** | `sub`, `display_name`, `organization_name` | |
| 243 | + |
| 244 | +### Sorting Technical Details |
| 245 | + |
| 246 | +The `sort()` method accepts an array of claim paths relative to the |
| 247 | +**JWT payload root**. When sorting by metadata claims, you must explicitly |
| 248 | +include the `metadata` prefix: |
| 249 | + |
| 250 | +```php |
| 251 | +$collection->sort([ |
| 252 | + ['metadata', 'openid_provider', 'display_name'], // Primary (Metadata) |
| 253 | + ['metadata', 'federation_entity', 'display_name'], // Fallback 1 (Metadata) |
| 254 | + ['sub'] // Fallback 2 (Entity ID root claim) |
| 255 | +], 'asc'); |
| 256 | +``` |
| 257 | + |
| 258 | +--- |
| 259 | + |
| 260 | +## Serialized Response Format |
| 261 | + |
| 262 | +The `toCollectionEndpointResponseArray()` method produces a structure compatible |
| 263 | +with the OpenID Federation specification: |
| 264 | + |
| 265 | +```json |
| 266 | +{ |
| 267 | + "entities": [ |
| 268 | + { |
| 269 | + "entity_id": "https://idp.example.org/", |
| 270 | + "entity_types": ["openid_provider"], |
| 271 | + "ui_infos": { |
| 272 | + "openid_provider": { |
| 273 | + "display_name": "Example IDP" |
| 274 | + } |
| 275 | + }, |
| 276 | + "trust_marks": [ |
| 277 | + { "id": "https://example.org/marks/certified", "trust_mark": "..." } |
| 278 | + ] |
| 279 | + } |
| 280 | + ], |
| 281 | + "next": "aHR0cHM6Ly9pZHAuZXhhbXBsZS5vcmcv", |
| 282 | + "last_updated": 1745410000 |
| 283 | +} |
| 284 | +``` |
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