Moonshot

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Project Moonshot is a Janet-led initiative, in partnership with the GÉANT project and others, to develop a single unifying technology for extending the benefits of federated identity to a broad range of non-Web services, including Cloud infrastructures, High Performance Computing & Grid infrastructures and other commonly deployed services including mail, file store, remote access and instant messaging. The goal of the technology is to enable the management of access to a broad range of services and applications, using a single technology and infrastructure. This is expected to significantly improve the delivery of these services by providing users with a common single sign-on, for both internal and external services. Service providers will be able to more easily offer their services to users from other organisations using a single common authentication mechanism. This will enhance the user’s experience, and reduce costs for those organisations supporting users, and delivering services to them. This group is for community of Moonshot users, whether you're new to the technology, you're currently evaluating and getting to grips with it, or you've deployed it. For the list of guidance available about Moonshot within this group, see the Start Here wiki page. Jisc Assent, the production service underpinned by the Moonshot technology, went live on 25th March 2015. For information on, or to join the Jisc Assent service, please visit http://www.jisc.ac.uk/assent

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Understanding Moonshot - Terminology

Rhys Smith

4 July 2013 at 2:17pm

This page defines some of the commonly used terminology throughout the Moonshot specifications and documentation.

Term	Explanation
ABFAB	ABFAB is the name of the set of open standards, and the working group of the IETF that created these standards, that Moonshot is based upon.
GSS-API	The Generic Security Service Application Program Interface (GSS-API or GSSAPI) is an API for applications to use to access security services. Moonshot is a GSS-API implementation. The GSS-API is an IETF standard, defined in RFC 2743.
GSS-EAP
IETF	The Internet Engineering Task Force is a standards organisation that creates and promotes internet standards. Moonshot is based on the IETF's ABFAB working group.
Janet	Janet is a private, UK government-funded organisation, which provides computer network and related collaborative services to UK research and education.
Moonshot	Moonshot is Janet's implementation of the ABFAB standards.
NAI	Network Access Identifier - A standardised way of identifier a user from a particular organisation, represented as "user@realm" (e.g. johnsmith@example.com). The NAI is an IETF standard, defined in RFC 4282.
RADIUS	The Remote Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS) is a protocol that provides a centralised Authentication, Authorisation, and Accounting (AAA) system. RADIUS is an IETF standard, defined in various RFCs, including RFC 2865. Moonshot uses RADIUS, and its more secure sibling RADSEC, to provide rich authentication abilities.
RADSEC	RADSEC is a variant of RADIUS that transports RADIUS datagrams over TCP and TLS, instead of UDP. RADSEC is an IETF standard, defined in RFC 6684.
SAML	The Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) is an XML-based open standard data format for exchanging authentication and authorisation data between parties. SAML is a product of the OASIS Security Services Technical Committee. Moonshot uses SAML to provide rich authorisation abilities.
SASL
SPNEGO
SSPI
TLS	Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a cryptographic protocol that is designed to provide for secure communications over a network. TLS is an IETF standard, whose current approved version is defined in RFC 5246. Moonshot uses TLS to provide secure communication tunnels between entities.
Trust Router