Occasional problem with InCommon metadata refreshes

[Brian Koehmstedt]

On 6/26/2014 2:00 PM, Tom Scavo wrote:
> Followups to metadata-support at incommon.org, please.
>
> https://lists.incommon.org/sympa/info/metadata-support
>
> On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 4:20 PM, Brian Koehmstedt
> <bkoehmstedt at ucmerced.edu> wrote:
>>           <metadata:MetadataProvider id="IdPMD"
>> xsi:type="metadata:FilesystemMetadataProvider"
>> metadataFile="/local/users/shib/cvs/shibboleth/conf/incommon/InCommon-metadata.xml"
>>                                      maxRefreshDelay="PT15M" />
>>
>> And we have a crontab that runs at 1am every night that downloads the
>> metadata file to a temp location and once the download is complete,
>> moves it to
>> /local/users/shib/cvs/shibboleth/conf/incommon/InCommon-metadata.xml.
> Hmm, why don't you use the Shib IdP itself to download, verify, and
> otherwise process the metadata? See this wiki page for a complete
> example: https://spaces.internet2.edu/x/XAQjAQ
>
> What URL are you refreshing from? Are you verifying the signature on
> the metadata?
>
>
Refreshing from http://md.incommon.org/InCommon/InCommon-metadata.xml.
Am I verifying the signature?  No.  (Point taken that it's desirable to 
do so.)

Why am I using FilesystemMetadataProvider instead of 
FileBackedHTTPMetadataProvider?

Well, here's the deal:
I've discovered that sometimes service providers will update something 
critical in the metadata and expect me to update immediately when they 
do so (or when InCommon pushes it out).
If I set a 15 minute interval on FileBackedHTTPMetadataProvider, that's 
downloading 10MB every 15 minutes.  Surely if all the IdPs did this, 
you'd be not so happy with us.  But perhaps you encourage it after all.  
(Here's my chance to find out!  What's your recommended interval?)  My 
intention was to be a good net citizen.

I find that by using FilesystemMetadataProvider, if a service provider 
demands we update metadata immediately, I can do so manually, then rely 
on a 15 minute interval from FilesystemMetadataProvider to find the new 
data in short order, without having to actually redownload 10MB from you 
all throughout the day.