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Shibboleth at UVa

Shibboleth at UVa


Shibboleth is an inter-institutional authentication and authorization system developed by Internet2's Middleware initiative group. When using Shibboleth, your UVa password is never sent to the remote site. Your web session is instead redirected to a UVa server where your login and password are verified. After this verification is complete, all that is sent to the remote site are the attributes needed to support the remote application. For library resources this is typically just information that confirms that you are a member of the university community. For some other services where a login is needed, your Computing ID may be sent to the remote system.

While any service that is part of the InQueue or InCommon federations can work with these services, the Shibboleth applications presently being used or tested at UVa include:

  • WebAssign
    Webassign is a courseware system used by the Physics department for a few different undergraduate physics classes. WebAssign is using our production Shibboleth implementation using the InCommon Federation and NetBadge for local authentication.

  • VIVA Video Project
    This project leverages the InCommon Federation and Shibboleth to enable access to licensed video content hosted at UVa to VIVA higher education sites around the state. UVa users access this site via our Shibboleth Identity Provider which is tied into our local NetBadge web login service.

  • NYU's DRAM Project
    DRAM is a digital library for colleges and universities of recordings important American and international repertoire. UVa users access this site via our Shibboleth Identity Provider which is tied into our local NetBadge web login service.

  • Microsoft's DreakSpark Service
    Microsoft's site for distributing Professional Developer and Designer tools for students at no charge. UVa users access this site via our Shibboleth Identity Provider which is tied into our local NetBadge web login service.

  • JSTOR
    JSTOR is a large collection of journal materials licensed for use at the university by Alderman Library.

  • Internet2 InCommon Federation Test Site
    You can test the InCommon Federation Shibboleth system using this site. A successful connection is represented via a table displaying various web server attributes.

  • Internet2 InQueue Federation Test Site
    You can test the InQueue Federation Shibboleth system using this site. A successful connection is represented via a table displaying various web server attributes.

Our InCommon Federation Shibboleth implementation at UVa uses NetBadge for login authentication. Whatever mechanism you use to login to on-grounds NetBadge applications will also work with Shibboleth.

The InQueue Federation Shibboleth implementation at UVa allows you to login using your Official UVa Computing ID (e.g. mst3k) and your password from either your Central Mail Service or your Blue Unix account.

You can test your Computing ID and password here to verify that you will be able to use the InQueue Shibboleth application. Users of InCommon Federation resources use NetBadge and do not need to test here. If NetBadge works for you locally, it will also work for InCommon-based applications.