SAML SSO and VPN

["Ed Perreault" <eperreau@cisco.com>]

Hi,

 

I'm new to SAML and have spent the last week reading OASIS documents and whitepapers from SSO companies. I was wondering if anyone knew of a SAML profile or use case for VPN with SAML?

 

Is there a way for a VPN box to authenticate a user and then pass the authentication information to a source site through SAML? Could this be as simple as sending a SAML assertion inside a SAML response which is in a HTTP post? Would SOAP be needed?

 

Is there a chicken and egg problem when adding VPN to SAML SSO? Consider a situation where the source site is inside a VPN. How does a user establish a VPN session if his/her browser doesn't have access to the source site?

 

I'm using the term "source site" as its used in section 4 of the 1.1 version of [SAMLBind].

 

thanks

Ed Perreault