Skip to main content

SignXML is an implementation of the W3C XML Signature standard in Python. This standard (also known as XMLDSig and RFC 3275) is used to provide payload security in SAML 2.0 and WS-Security, among other uses. Two versions of the standard exist (Version 1.1 and Version 2.0). SignXML implements all of the required components of the standard, and most recommended ones. Its features are:

  • Use of defusedxml.lxml to defend against common XML-based attacks when verifying signatures

  • Extensions to allow signing with and verifying X.509 certificate chains, including hostname/CN validation

  • Support for exclusive XML canonicalization with inclusive prefixes (InclusiveNamespaces PrefixList, required to verify signatures generated by some SAML implementations)

  • Modern Python compatibility (2.7-3.6+ and PyPy)

  • Well-supported, portable, reliable dependencies: lxml, defusedxml, cryptography, eight, pyOpenSSL

  • Comprehensive testing (including the XMLDSig interoperability suite) and continuous integration

  • Simple interface with useful defaults

  • Compactness, readability, and extensibility

Installation

pip install signxml

Note: SignXML depends on lxml and cryptography, which in turn depend on OpenSSL, LibXML, and Python tools to interface with them. You can install those as follows:

OS

Python

Command

Ubuntu

Python 2

apt-get install python-dev python-cffi libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev libssl-dev libffi-dev python-lxml python-cryptography python-openssl python-certifi python-defusedxml build-essential

Ubuntu

Python 3

apt-get install python3-dev python3-cffi libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev libssl-dev libffi-dev python3-lxml python3-cryptography python3-openssl python3-certifi python3-defusedxml build-essential

Red Hat

Python 2

yum install python-devel python-cffi libxml2-devel libxslt1-devel openssl-devel

Red Hat

Python 3

yum install python3-devel python3-cffi libxml2-devel libxslt1-devel openssl-devel

OS X/Homebrew

xcode-select --install; brew install openssl; export LDFLAGS="-L$(brew --prefix openssl)/lib" CFLAGS="-I$(brew --prefix openssl)/include"

Synopsis

SignXML uses the ElementTree API (also supported by lxml) to work with XML data.

from signxml import XMLSigner, XMLVerifier

cert = open("example.pem").read()
key = open("example.key").read()
root = ElementTree.fromstring(data_to_sign)
signed_root = XMLSigner().sign(root, key=key, cert=cert)
verified_data = XMLVerifier().verify(signed_root).signed_xml

Verifying SAML assertions

Assuming metadata.xml contains SAML metadata for the assertion source:

from lxml import etree
from base64 import b64decode
from signxml import XMLVerifier

with open("metadata.xml", "rb") as fh:
    cert = etree.parse(fh).find("//ds:X509Certificate").text

assertion_data = XMLVerifier().verify(b64decode(assertion_body), x509_cert=cert).signed_xml

Example: Signing and verifying a SAML assertion

TODO

XML signature methods: enveloped, detached, enveloping

The XML Signature specification defines three ways to compose a signature with the data being signed: enveloped, detached, and enveloping signature. Enveloped is the default method. To specify the type of signature that you want to generate, pass the method argument to sign():

signed_root = XMLSigner(method=signxml.methods.detached).sign(root, key=key, cert=cert)
verified_data = XMLVerifier().verify(signed_root).signed_xml

For detached signatures, the code above will use the Id or ID attribute of root to generate a relative URI (<Reference URI="#value"). You can also override the value of URI by passing a reference_uri argument to sign(). To verify a detached signature that refers to an external entity, pass a callable resolver in XMLVerifier().verify(data, uri_resolver=...).

Example: Signing and verifying a SOAP WS-Security envelope

TODO

See the API documentation for more.

Authors

  • Andrey Kislyuk

License

Licensed under the terms of the Apache License, Version 2.0.

https://img.shields.io/travis/XML-Security/signxml.svg https://codecov.io/github/XML-Security/signxml/coverage.svg?branch=master https://img.shields.io/pypi/v/signxml.svg https://img.shields.io/pypi/l/signxml.svg https://readthedocs.org/projects/signxml/badge/?version=latest

Metadata

Release files for signxml 2.6.0

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for signxml 2.6.0
File Size Uploaded
signxml-2.6.0.tar.gz 29.4 kB Details

Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for signxml 2.6.0
File Interpreter ABI Platform
signxml-2.6.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl Python 2, Python 3 none any Details

Total release size: 52.4 kB

Release files / signxml-2.6.0.tar.gz

Download URL signxml-2.6.0.tar.gz
Size 29.4 kB
Tags Source
SHA-256 checksum
How to use checksums
70e3edbb07b89bec94d39db2cdced724c540f9258366474177c746b9f903d9c4
BLAKE2b-256 checksum
How to use checksums
c83261a8193985fcc4d8aada6157928aa628278a0cb0a8294c0489bf749a0008
Upload date
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing?
What is trusted publishing?
No
Uploaded via Python-urllib/3.6

Release files / signxml-2.6.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl

Download URL signxml-2.6.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Size 23.1 kB
Tags Python 2 Python 3
SHA-256 checksum
How to use checksums
9540efcddd94e45399fa26ee2d24af43d162d55cbe3a2b36fddb394741993dd5
BLAKE2b-256 checksum
How to use checksums
3d7113250d8a9eacdd84129551e57ed25d08deb1d37c91adeb020e35e3cec2fc
Upload date
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing?
What is trusted publishing?
No
Uploaded via Python-urllib/3.6

Release history Release notifications | RSS feed

5.1.0

2 release files

5.0.1

2 release files

5.0.0

2 release files

4.5.1

2 release files

4.4.0

2 release files

4.3.1

2 release files

4.3.0

2 release files

4.2.2

2 release files

4.2.1

2 release files

4.2.0

2 release files

4.1.0

2 release files

4.0.5

2 release files

4.0.4

2 release files

4.0.3

2 release files

4.0.2

2 release files

4.0.1

2 release files

4.0.0

2 release files

3.2.2

2 release files

3.2.1

2 release files

3.2.0

2 release files

3.1.1

2 release files

3.1.0

2 release files

3.0.2

2 release files

3.0.1

2 release files

3.0.0

2 release files

2.10.0

2 release files

2.9.0

2 release files

2.8.2

2 release files

2.8.1

2 release files

2.8.0

2 release files

2.7.3

2 release files

2.7.2

2 release files

2.7.1

2 release files

2.7.0

2 release files

This release

2.6.0 This release

2 release files

2.5.2

2 release files

2.4.0

2 release files

2.3.0

2 release files

2.2.6

2 release files

2.2.4

2 release files

2.2.3

2 release files

2.2.2

2 release files

2.2.1

2 release files

2.2.0

2 release files

2.1.4

2 release files

2.0.0

2 release files

1.0.2

2 release files

1.0.1

2 release files

1.0.0

2 release files

0.6.0

2 release files

0.5.0

2 release files

0.4.6

2 release files

0.4.5

2 release files

0.4.4

2 release files

0.4.3

2 release files

0.4.2

2 release files

0.4.1

1 release file

0.4.0

1 release file

0.3.9

1 release file

0.3.8

1 release file

0.3.7

1 release file

0.3.6

1 release file

0.3.5

1 release file

0.3.4

1 release file

0.3.3

1 release file

0.3.2

1 release file

0.3.1

1 release file

0.3.0

1 release file

0.2.9

1 release file

0.2.8

1 release file

0.2.7

1 release file

0.2.6

1 release file

0.2.5

1 release file

0.2.4

1 release file

0.2.3

1 release file

0.2.2

1 release file

0.2.1

1 release file

0.2.0

1 release file

0.1.9

1 release file

0.1.8

1 release file

0.1.7

1 release file

0.1.6

1 release file

0.1.5

1 release file

0.1.4

1 release file

0.1.3

1 release file

0.1.2

1 release file

0.1.1

1 release file

0.1.0

1 release file

0.0.1

1 release file

Anthropic, PBC Visionary sponsor Bloomberg Visionary sponsor Hudson River Trading Visionary sponsor Meta Visionary sponsor NVIDIA Visionary sponsor Microsoft Sustainability sponsor Depot Continuous Integration AWS Cloud computing and Security Sponsor Datadog Monitoring Fastly CDN Google Download Analytics Sentry Error logging StatusPage Status page