Shibboleth Not Reading HTTP Header Variables

[Peter Schober]

* Elmore, Rodney (CDC/OID/NCHHSTP) (CTR) <fyg9 at cdc.gov> [2016-08-03 17:02]:
>   <Attribute name="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:persistent" id="SAML_SAMS_EMAIL">
>                 <AttributeDecoder xsi:type="NameIDAttributeDecoder" formatter="$NameQualifier!$SPNameQualifier!$Name" defaultQualifiers="true"/>
>     </Attribute>
> 
> I get the following errors in my log file:

None of these messages are errors, they are logged at DEBUG and INFO
levels. Errors logged at the ERROR level can be identified by the
string "ERROR" as part of the log message.

> 2016-08-02 18:18:10 INFO Shibboleth.AttributeExtractor.XML [14]:
> skipping unmapped SAML 2.0 Attribute with Name: SAML_SAMS_EMAIL,
> Format:urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:attrname-format:unspecified

If that's what you're after it does not bear any resemblence to what
you've configured: That line means you recieved a SAML Attribute (called
"SAML_SAMS_EMAIL") with the "unspecified" name format.

What you configured in the map would cause the SP to look for a NameID
data structure (by use of the NameIDAttributeDecoder), of type
"persistent", and -- if one was found -- the SP would *create* an
environment variable (or HTTP Request Header) called "SAML_SAMS_EMAIL"
(not look at id/"read" it from somewhere).

Here's the documentation you'll want to look at. Guessing won't get
you far with SAML nor Shibboleth:
https://wiki.shibboleth.net/confluence/display/SHIB2/NativeSPAddAttribute

This should do what you're after:

  <Attribute name="SAML_SAMS_EMAIL" id="SAML_SAMS_EMAIL"
    nameFormat="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:attrname-format:unspecified" />

The value of the id XML attribute here can be whatever you want, it's
internal to your deployment.

-peter