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Asked: 2026-05-26T05:24:00+00:00

We have an ADFS 2.0 installation that’s working well for our MVC apps in

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We have an ADFS 2.0 installation that’s working well for our MVC apps in our various environments. I believe it uses “passive authentication” (I’m still getting used to the proper terminology) – it definitely is where it redirects the user to our adfs proxy if the user is not logged in and adfs redirects the user back to our MVC app once they are logged in.

We are now beginning to expose some secured web services and want to tap into this same authentication system. My understanding is that I want to use ws2007FederationHttpBinding as my binding to do this. I believe I have my WCF’s web.config all setup for this but my struggle is now centered around the FederationMetadata.xml file.

Looking at this file, I see some things that obviously need to change, such as entityID="http://localhost/UserServices" and the certificate. Then there are some things that I have no clue what they are and if they need to change or not, such as EntityDescriptor ID="_2b510fe8-98b8...... and <ds:SignatureValue>CZe5mEu19/bDNoZrY8f6C559CJ........

Where can I get a better understanding on how I should be managing this file for my various environments? I have the following environments hosting these services that we’ll be deploying to one way or another:

  1. Individual developer workstations (3x for now, more later)
  2. A shared Dev environment for people writing apps against these services but not necessarily modifying the services
  3. QA
  4. Staging
  5. Production (3 different environments with different certs/domains/etc.)

As such, we have a fairly streamlined process in place managing our web.config files in the different environments using transforms and finding/replacing certain tokens, so I’d like to do the same thing with this xml file. So ultimately, all I’m looking for is some understanding in what changes are necessary when managing this FederationMetadata.xml file for my various environments.

My current FederationMetadata.base.xml file is below and I BELIEVE this is about right (I just need names/roles) and I just need to intelligently replace the various tokens, such as ~RootServiceUrlTokenToReplace~, in here:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<EntityDescriptor ID="~EntityDescriptorIdTokenToReplace~" entityID="http://~RootServiceUrlTokenToReplace~" xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:metadata">
  <ds:Signature xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#">
    <ds:SignedInfo>
      <ds:CanonicalizationMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/10/xml-exc-c14n#" />
      <ds:SignatureMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmldsig-more#rsa-sha256" />
      <ds:Reference URI="#~ReferenceURITokenToReplace~">
        <ds:Transforms>
          <ds:Transform Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#enveloped-signature" />
          <ds:Transform Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/10/xml-exc-c14n#" />
        </ds:Transforms>
        <ds:DigestMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#sha256" />
        <ds:DigestValue>~DigestValueTokenToReplace~</ds:DigestValue>
      </ds:Reference>
    </ds:SignedInfo>
    <ds:SignatureValue>~SignatureValueTokenToReplace~</ds:SignatureValue>
    <KeyInfo xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#">
      <X509Data>
        <X509Certificate>~CertificateTokenToReplace~</X509Certificate>
      </X509Data>
    </KeyInfo>
  </ds:Signature>
  <RoleDescriptor xsi:type="fed:ApplicationServiceType" protocolSupportEnumeration="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/02/trust http://docs.oasis-open.org/ws-sx/ws-trust/200512" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:fed="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wsfed/federation/200706">
    <KeyDescriptor use="encryption">
      <KeyInfo xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#">
        <X509Data>
          <X509Certificate>~CertificateTokenToReplace~</X509Certificate>
        </X509Data>
      </KeyInfo>
    </KeyDescriptor>
    <fed:ClaimTypesRequested>
      <auth:ClaimType Uri="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/name" Optional="true" xmlns:auth="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wsfed/authorization/200706" />
      <auth:ClaimType Uri="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ws/2008/06/identity/claims/role" Optional="true" xmlns:auth="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wsfed/authorization/200706" />
    </fed:ClaimTypesRequested>
    <fed:TargetScopes>
      <EndpointReference xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/08/addressing">
        <Address>http://~RootServiceUrlTokenToReplace~</Address>
      </EndpointReference>
    </fed:TargetScopes>
    <fed:ApplicationServiceEndpoint>
      <EndpointReference xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/08/addressing">
        <Address>http://~RootServiceUrlTokenToReplace~</Address>
      </EndpointReference>
    </fed:ApplicationServiceEndpoint>
  </RoleDescriptor>
</EntityDescriptor>
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    A WIF-based application’s FederationMetadata.xml is not related to the claims-based web services it offers.

    (A URL pointing to) FederationMetadata.xml is used by AD FS, to automatically update the information to be used in a Relying Party Trust. AD FS can for example regularly query this URL, and update the Relying Party Trust information accordingly.

    The information about a web service (claims-based or otherwise), i.e., its metadata, is published as a WSDL document. In a WCF-based service this is a URL that often looks like this: http://myhost.example.com/appName/serviceName.svc?wsdl. That WSDL document often does not exist as a physical file, but is automatically generated by WCF.

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