13.5.4 Configuring the Encryption Method for the SAML Assertion

By default, AES128 (Advanced Standard Encryption, 128-bit) is used to encrypt SAML assertions. If you require a different encryption method, such as TDES (Triple Data Encryption Algorithm) or AES256 (Advanced Standard Encryption, 256-bit), you can modify the Tomcat web.xml file and specify your required method. To use PKCS 2.0 (RSA-OAEP) for encryption, see TID.

By default, AES128 (Advanced Standard Encryption, 128-bit) is used to encrypt SAML assertions. If you require a different encryption method, such as AES256 (Advanced Standard Encryption, 256-bit), you can modify the Tomcat web.xml file, and specify the required method. To use PKCS 2.0 (RSA-OAEP) for encryption, see TID.

  1. Open the Identity Server web.xml file.

  2. Add the following lines to the file:

    <context-param>
            <param-name>EncryptionMethod</param-name>
            <param-value>AES256</param-value>
    </context-param>

    You can set the <param-value> element to AES128 or AES256. Because AES128 is the default, specifying this value in the web.xml file does not change any behavior.

    For information about how to edit a file, see Modifying Configurations in the NetIQ Access Manager 5.0 Administration Guide.

The following algorithms for encryption method are supported:

<md:EncryptionMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#aes128-cbc"/><md:EncryptionMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#aes256-cbc"/><md:EncryptionMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#rsa-oaep"/><md:EncryptionMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#rsa-oaep-mgf1p"/>