Firefox-Embedded Selector 1.0

Introduction

An identity selector is an end-user application that allows a user to accept i-cards from card issuing sites (known as Identity Providers or IdPs), create self-issued i-cards, manage the user's set of cards (a bit like a wallet), and to use these cards to authenticate to relying sites, or to local applications. These i-cards are visualized as card icons in a user interface that allows the user to review, manage and in some cases edit some of the information associated with the card.

The long term plan is that these selectors will support all of the major identity protocols and run on all popular platforms. In the past year we have worked mostly on interoperability with Microsoft CardSpace-compatible card issuing and relying sites, systems and services as well as with OpenID OPs and relying sites.

End-User Perspective

Setup

To use this solution you must:

1. Follow the instructions here: Embedded-Selector For Firefox Installation to install the this Higgins extension into Firefox.
2. After re-starting your browser the setup wizard will help you set up your account on https://graceland.parityinc.net, the free test server run by Parity.

Functionality

You should now be able to:

• Import Microsoft CardSpace-compatible managed cards from test sites listed under "Identity Providers" here: CardSpace Interop. You go to the card issuing site, create a .crd file for the card. If you click on the link to the .crd file, the browser extension will pop up and automatically import this into the selector. If you have a .crd file on your hard drive, there is an import button in the i-card manager to manually import it into the selector.
• If you click on the "mouse" button on the Higgins toolbar in Firefox the "i-card manager" web app will appear in your browser. You should be able to see your card(s) here.
• You can select a card and delete it if you wish.
• If you go to the test sites listed under "Relying Party Sites" here: CardSpace Interop you should be able to sign in using the card (assuming that the claims supported by the card you used satisfy the relying site's policy).

Deployer Perspective

This overall solution is comprised of these three sub-systems which must be built and deployed:

1. Deploying the Embedded-Selector Extension for Firefox
   • Constituent components include: Higgins Embedded-Selector Extension for Firefox
2. Deploying the Higgins I-Card Manager Service
   • Constituent components include: I-Card Manager
3. Deploying the I-Card Service
   • Constituent components include: Identity Agent Service, I-Card Selector Service, I-Card Registry, I-Card Provider, Token Service, Identity Attribute Service, Jena Context Provider

Developer Perspective

Architecture

For Higgins 1.0 the Web-based identity selector only supports integration with Firefox on Windows and Mac OSX. Support for other browsers and platforms is under active development.

The Firefox implementation uses an embedded i-card selector within the Higgins Embedded-Selector Extension for Firefox. This has been available since 1.0M4.

Building

This section describes the steps a developer would use to build deployable artifacts. The next section describes how to deploy them to create a runnable system.

This overall solution is comprised of the following sub-systems which must be built separately.

1. Building the Higgins Browser Extension for Firefox
   • Constituent components include: Higgins Browser Extension for Firefox
2. Building the Higgins I-Card Manager Service
   • Constituent components include: I-Card Manager
3. Building the Higgins I-Card Service
   • Constituent components include: I-Card Service, I-Card Selector Service, I-Card Registry, I-Card Provider, Token Service, Identity Attribute Service, Jena Context Provider

See Also

• Solutions

Links

• Higgins Home