Hi I would like to create single sign-on access for a product of one of our customers. It needs to be applicable for a system that relies on SAML for authorization.
I have no previous experience with SAML (a little with OAuth 2.0). I want to know the achievable solution. To program it myself from the get go and start orienting on the technical spec or use a predefined toolkit. What did you do, or would you do when you where in my situation?
I have found two fine toolkits, onelogin and simplesamlphp. I have seen the "Getting Started with SAML and PHP" Question. There they already assume you want to use a toolkit. OneLogin states that SAML is very complex and costly to implement, not with a toolkit however.
In short i want to know if this statement is true, since the source is unreliable. Self programming or toolkit?
Note one more SAML 2.0 PHP library https://www.lightsaml.com/
I wrote it myself, and yes, it is complex. You could take some shortcuts since it will be your internal code, but still it took me quite a lot to write it.
I would definitely recommend you first to investigate possibilities of existing solutions you can find, and how they fit your needs, before taking it on yourself.
If you are using Symfony, the LighSAML comes with SAML SP Bundle https://github.com/lightSAML/SpBundle that might really shorten you SAML SSO implementation.