Why are we getting SAML authentication error "Unable to parse the payload received as a part if idp metadata file or xml." on our Splunk 6.3.1 search head?

[metadata]

We tried to enable SAML authentication for our Splunk 6.3.1 Search Head. For this, we tried to import the IdP metadata XML file, but this fails with the following message:

"Unable to parse the payload received as a part if idp metadata file or xml."

We tried to import the IdP xml file provided at Step 3 "Obtain the IdP meta data" of this blog: http://blogs.splunk.com/2013/03/28/splunkweb-sso-samlv2/ but we do obtain the exact same message:

"Unable to parse the payload received as a part if idp metadata file or xml."

Is there a specific format we need to comply to ?

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks

[jkat54 · Accepted solution]

I have a hunch that you're character encoding is bad. Such as you're copying the IDP metadata file/xml to notepad in windows, and then saving and/or copy and pasting to linux search head. Or visa versa you're copying from linux to windows.

You should try using dosutils if in linux. apt-get dosutils, etc... it gives you commands called dos2unix and unix2dos. SO if you're uploading to linux, try running dos2unix on the IDP xml file first, and then maybe use cat to write the file to your console, then copy and paste into the search head on step 3.