3 Protocol Details

This section addresses the message processing model for the protocol. It includes related information required by an implementation to successfully emit or consume protocol messages, such as an abstract data model for maintaining configuration or state information.

The protocol inherently defines three distinct classes of functionality (or roles) for the entities that emit, transport, and consume protocol messages. The requestor IP/STS, relying party, and web browser requestor roles are described in separate subsections. To improve readability, a fourth section is included at the beginning that describes common details for the requestor IP/STS and relying party roles.