FinalGuidelines
| ID | Title | Summary | Links | Status |
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| AARC- |
G002Supersedes: AARC-G001 (June 13, 2017)
Other identifiers:
AARC-JRA1.4A)
Guidelines on expressing group membership and role information | 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. | AARC-JRA1.4A (201710) [PDF] Older versions AARC-JRA1.4A (1.0) [PDF] | | AARC-G021 | Guideline on the 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. | Wiki doc Website | |
| AARC-G027 | Specification for expressing resource capabilities | 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. | PDF | |
AARC-G031 | Guidelines for the evaluation and combination of the assurance of external identities | The Research Infrastructures (from now on just Infrastructures) that follow the AARC Blueprint Architecture [AARC-BPA] set up their own AAI to grant access to their services. The AAI is typically based on a central IdP-SP proxy that act as a gateway for the Infrastructure services and resources. 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. The Infrastructures also define one or more assurance profiles, or a combination of assurance components, tailored to a specific risk assessment [AARC-G021]. 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 the lack of it. | Wiki pdf working doc | |
| AARC-G049 | A specification for IdP hinting | 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. | doc pdf | |
| ID | Title | Summary | Links | Status |
|---|
AARC-G003 Other idenftifiers: AARC-JRA1.4B | Guidelines on attribute aggregation | 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. | PDF | |
AARC-G004 Other idenftifiers: AARC-JRA1.4C | Guidelines on token translation services | 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. | PDF | |
AARC-G005 Other idenftifiers: AARC-JRA1.4D | Guidelines on credential delegation | 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. | PDF | |
AARC-G006 Other idenftifiers: AARC-JRA1.4E | Best practices for managing authorisation | 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. | PDF | |
AARC-G007 Other idenftifiers: AARC-JRA1.4F | Guidelines on non-browser access | 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. | PDF | |
AARC-G008 Other idenftifiers: AARC-JRA1.4G | Guidelines for implementing SAML authentication proxies for social media identity providers | 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. | PDF | |
AARC-G009 Other idenftifiers: AARC-JRA1.4H | Account linking and LoA elevation use cases and common practices for international research collaboration | 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. | PDF | |
AARC-G010 Other idenftifiers: AARC-JRA1.4I | Best practices and recommendations for attribute translation from federated authentication to X.509 credentials | 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. | PDF | |
AARC-G029 | Guidelines on stepping up the authentication component in AAIs implementing the AARC BPA | 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 may require an already logged in user to re-authenticate using a stronger authentication mechanism when accessing sensitive resources. Authentication step-up is then needed to improve the original authentication strength of those users. This document provides guidelines on step-up of the authentication component. It covers requirements and implementation recommendations, describes a proposed authentication step-up model, and outlines related work and documentation. | Wiki
Website
| AARC-I047 (was AARC2-JRA1.2A) | Implementing scalable and consistent authorisation across multi-SP environments | The purpose of this document is to provide information to infrastructures for efficiently implementing access restrictions that are required by the individual communities and e-Infrastructures. The suggestions are given within the setting of the AARC BPA. In this scenario, user communities make use of an SP-IdP-Proxy (including User Attribute services) in order to manage access to resources (end services). The suggestions given address two different topics. One is about providing an interoperable schema to use for expressing authorisation information. This is an extension of the recommendations provided in AARC-G002 - Expressing group membership and role information and AARC-G027 - Specification for expressing resource capabilities. The other topic concerns the organisational architecture for conveying authorisation information. All information within this latter area are derived from the more detailed Deliverable DJRA1.2 on authorisation models. | Wiki pdf | |
Deliverables
| ID | Title | Summary | Links |
|---|
| Anchor |
|---|
AARC2_DJRA1_2 | AARC2_DJRA1_2 | AARC2-DJRA1.2Authorisation Models for SPs | This deliverable describes possible authorisation models for SAML-SPs and OIDC-RPs in a proxied environment. We provide an overview about available and upcoming technologies currently in use or development for community and research infrastructures. | pdf | | AARC2-DJRA1.1 | Use-Cases for Interoperable Cross-Infrastructure AAI | The researchers’ need to access online services and resources offered by different research and e-infrastructures has increased over the last years. Through federated access, researchersshould be able to seamlessly and securely access resources across these infrastructures using their existing credentialsfrom their home organisations. AAI interoperability a key requirement to support this. The AARC blueprint architecture has been designed to address this need, aiming to improve the user experience when accessing and sharing resources provided by different infrastructures. To this end, this document analyses research community use cases that require access to services and resources across infrastructures. The research community specific use cases have been mapped to a set of generic use cases of cross-infrastructure AAI flows. These flows will serve as input for further refining and complementing where needed the AAI interoperability aspects of the AARC Blueprint Architecture. | pdf |
| AARC2-DJRA1.3 | VO Platforms for Research Collaborations | In order to scale the users’ use of research infrastructures, cyber- and e-infrastructures, it makes sense to introduce a “virtual organisation” (VO) that can unify users with a shared purpose or research activity. This document investigates this use of the VO and makes recommendations for the platform which maintains this VO information, both for the VO’s own use but particularly for the VO’s members’ use of the infrastructure. | pdf |
| AARC2-DJRA1.4 | Evolution of the AARC Blueprint Architecture | This document describes the evolution of the AARC Blueprint Architecture, starting with a summary of the changes since AARC-BPA-2017. It also describes the community-first approach which enables researchers to use their community identity for accessing services offered by different infrastructures. | pdf |
Active DraftsGuidelines
| ID | Title | Summary | Links | Status |
|---|
AARC-G025 (AARC2-JRA1.1E) | Guidelines for expressing affiliation| G052 | OAuth 2.0 Proxied Token Introspection | This specification extends the OAuth 2.0 Token Introspection (RFC7662) method to allow conveying meta-information about a token from an Authorization Server (AS) to the protected resource even when there is no direct trust relationship between the protected resource and the token issuer. The method defined in this specification, termed "proxied" token introspection, requires access tokens to be presented in JWT format containing the iss claim for identifying the issuer of the token. Proxied token introspection assumes that the AS which is trusted by the protected resource has established a trust relationship with the AS which has issued the token that needs to be validated. | Google doc | | Status |
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| colour | Yellow |
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| title | FINAL CALL |
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| AARC-G056 | AARC profile for expressing community identity attributes | This document defines a profile for expressing the attributes of a researcher’s digital identity. The profile contains a common list of attributes and definitions based on existing standards and best practises in research & education. The attributes include identifiers, profile information, and community attributes such as group membership and role information. | Google doc | | Status |
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| colour | Yellow |
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| title | FINAL CALL |
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| AARC-I058 | Methods for establishing trust between OAuth 2.0 Authorization Servers | This document explores different approaches for establishing trust among entities such as OAuth 2.0 Authorization Servers (AS) and Resource Servers (RS) residing in distinct domains. These interactions are facilitated through trusted third parties referred to as Trust Anchors, which are entities issuing authoritative statements about entities that participate in an identity federation. | Google doc | | Status |
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| colour | Yellow |
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| title | FINAL CALL |
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| AARC-G073 | Guidelines for refreshing tokens between proxies | This document explores the refresh token flow in a scenario where client applications interact with resource servers through interconnected OpenID Providers (OIDC). Specifically, it focuses on the case where an AARC-compliant Infrastructure Proxy [AARC-G045] acts as an intermediary between the client and a Community AAI. To address challenges related to refresh token handling in this configuration, the document specifies a secure refresh token flow that leverages introspection to ensure the validity of refresh tokens before issuing new access tokens. The document describes the flows for both obtaining and using refresh tokens. | Google doc | |
AARC-G080
| AARC Blueprint Architecture 2025
| The AARC Blueprint Architecture (BPA) provides a set of building blocks for software architects and technical decision makers who are designing and implementing access management solutions for international research collaborations. This document describes the evolution of the AARC Blueprint Architecture, starting with a summary of the changes since AARC-BPA-2019. | Google doc (Initial Revision) | |
AARC-G081
| Recommendations for Token Lifetimes | This document provides an overview over various types of tokens, or more generally, about assertions used to identify and authorise users. We analyse the different properties of tokens and categorise available authorisation patterns to give recommendations about the life times of tokens associated with specific properties and authorisation levels. The document is between policy and architecture working group
| Google doc | |
Upcoming / Inactive Drafts
Guidelines
