dex/Documentation/oidc-notes.md

OIDC Connect Core Notes

dex aims to be a full featured OIDC Provider, but it still has a little ways to go. Most of the places where dex and OIDC diverge are minor, but we do want to fix them. Here's a list of these places; there may be other discrepancies as well if you find any please file an issue or even better, a pull request.

To be clear: the places were we are not in compliance with mandatory features, we will fix. As for things marked as OPTIONAL in the spec, whether and when those are supported by dex will be driven by the needs of the community.

Notes on OpenID Connect Core

Sec. 2. ID Token

• None of the OPTIONAL claims (acr, amr, azp, auth_time) are supported
• dex signs using JWS but does not do the OPTIONAL encryption.

Sec. 3. Authentication

• Only the authorization code flow (where response_type is code) is supported.

Sec. 3.1.2.1. Authentication Request

• max_age not implemented; it's OPTIONAL in the spec, but if it's present servers MUST include auth_time, which dex does not.
• None of the other OPTIONAL parameters are implemented with the exception of:
  • state
  • nonce
• dex also defines a non-standard register parameter; when this parameter is 1, end-users are taken through a registration flow, which after completing successfully, lands them at the specified redirect_uri

Sec. 3.2.2.3. Authorization Server Authenticates End-User

• The spec states that the authentication server "MUST NOT interact with the End-User" when prompt is none We don't check the prompt parameter at all; similarly, dex MUST re-prompt when prompt is login - dex does not do this either.

Sec. 3.1.3.2. Token Request Validation

• In Token requests, dex chooses to proceed without error when redirect_uri is not present and there's only one registered valid URI (which is valid behavior)

Sec. 4. Initiating Login from a Third Party - dex does not support this at this time

Sec. 5.1.2. AdditionalClaims

• dex defines uses the following additional claims:
  • http://coreos.com/password/old-hash
  • http://coreos.com/password/reset-callback
  • http://coreos.com/email/verification-callback
  • http://coreos.com/email/verificationEmail

Sec. 5.3. UserInfo Endpoint

• dex does not implement this endpoint.

Sec. 6.1 Passing a Request Object by Value

• dex does not implement this feature.

Sec. 7. Self-Issued OpenID Provider

• dex does not implement this feature.

Sec. 8. Subject Identifier Types

• dex only supports the public subject identifier type.

Sec. 9. Client Authentication

• dex only supports the client_secret_basic client authentication type.

Sec. 11. Offline Access

• offline_access in 'scope' is supported, but as we haven't implemented 'prompt' yet, the spec's requirement is not fully met yet.

Sec. 15.1. Mandatory to Implement Features for All OpenID Providers

• dex is missing the follow mandatory features (some are already noted elsewhere in this document):
  • Support for prompt parameter
  • Support for the auth_time parameter
  • Support for enforcing max_age parameter

Sec. 15.3. Discovery and Registration

• dex supports OIDC Discovery at the standard /.well-known/openid-configuration endpoint.