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<p class="MsoNormal">Recently we had a service provider whose MetadataProvider type is FileBackedHTTPMetadataProvider send us bad metadata—which caused the entire IdP to fail after a metadata reload. Our natural question was “How do we prevent a single service
provider from crashing the entire IDP?” which led us to the failFastInitialization=false option.
<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">However, the documentation on the option states “operations that require valid metadata will fail” and Scott notes in this thread (http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.shibboleth.user/33630) that using the option will result in “your
IdP will start up fine and then services will just fail to work randomly.”<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">This begs the question: What is the failFastInitialization=false MetadataProvider option actually used for? It seems as though it’s just a switch between “fail now, massively” or “fail later in a weird, less-diagnosable way.” Testing
the option on IdP V3 shows that the IdP does start, but then not even the /idp/status page will.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So, not just operations for that service provider that provided bad metadata will fail, but any function that references metadata in any way will fail?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Matt Rising<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Towson University<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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