This page is part of the Security for Scalable Registration, Authentication, and Authorization (v1.1.0: STU 1 Update) based on FHIR (HL7® FHIR® Standard) R4. This is the current published version. For a full list of available versions, see the Directory of published versions

Discovery

The requirements in this section are applicable to both consumer-facing and B2B apps and the servers that support them. The client and the server SHALL conform to the underlying server metadata profile in UDAP Server Metadata.

Discovery of Endpoints

A FHIR Server SHALL make its Authorization Server’s authorization, token, and registration endpoints, and associated metadata available for discovery by client applications. Servers SHALL respond to GET requests to the following metadata URL by unregistered client applications and without requiring client authentication, where {baseURL} represents the base FHIR URL for the FHIR server: {baseURL}/.well-known/udap

The discovery workflow is summarized in the following diagram:

UDAP metadata SHALL be structured as a JSON object as per section 1 of UDAP Server Metadata and discussed further in Section 2.2.

If a server returns a 404 Not Found response to a GET request to the UDAP metadata endpoint, the client application SHOULD conclude that the server does not support UDAP workflows.

Note: Servers conforming to this guide are generally expected, but not required, to also support the HL7 SMART App Launch Framework, which defines additional discovery and metadata requirements.

Required UDAP Metadata

The metadata returned from the UDAP metadata endpoint defined above SHALL represent the server’s capabilities with respect to the UDAP workflows described in this guide. If no UDAP workflows are supported, the server SHALL return a 404 Not Found response to the metadata request. For elements that are represented by JSON arrays, clients SHALL interpret an empty array value to mean that the corresponding capability is NOT supported by the server.

Note: For servers that also support the SMART App Launch Framework, there is some expected overlap in the UDAP metadata elements defined below and metadata that a server may return for other workflows, e.g. OAuth 2.0 authorization and token endpoints are also included in metadata defined in the SMART App Launch Framework. Having different metadata endpoints permits servers to return different metadata values for different workflows. For example, a server could operate a different token endpoint to handle token requests from clients conforming to this guide. Thus, for the workflows defined in this guide, client applications SHALL use the applicable values returned in a server’s UDAP metadata.

Metadata parameter values
udap_versions_supported	required	A fixed array with one string element: ["1"]
udap_profiles_supported	required	An array of two or more strings identifying the core UDAP profiles supported by the Authorization Server. The array SHALL include: "udap_dcr" for UDAP Dynamic Client Registration, and "udap_authn" for UDAP JWT-Based Client Authentication. If the grant_types_supported parameter includes the string "client_credentials", then the array SHALL also include: "udap_authz" for UDAP Client Authorization Grants using JSON Web Tokens to indicate support for Authorization Extension Objects. If the server supports the user authentication workflow described in Section 6, then the array SHALL also include: "udap_to" for UDAP Tiered OAuth for User Authentication.
udap_authorization_extensions_supported	required	An array of zero or more recognized key names for Authorization Extension Objects supported by the Authorization Server. If the Authorization Server supports the B2B Authorization Extension Object defined in Section 5.2.1.1, then the following key name SHALL be included: ["hl7-b2b"]
udap_authorization_extensions_required	conditional	An array of zero or more recognized key names for Authorization Extension Objects required by the Authorization Server in every token request. This metadata parameter SHALL be present if the value of the udap_authorization_extensions_supported parameter is not an empty array. If the Authorization Server requires the B2B Authorization Extension Object defined in Section 5.2.1.1 in every token request, then the following key name SHALL be included: ["hl7-b2b"]
udap_certifications_supported	required	An array of zero or more certification URIs supported by the Authorization Server, e.g.: ["https://www.example.com/udap/profiles/example-certification"]
udap_certifications_required	conditional	An array of zero or more certification URIs required by the Authorization Server. This metadata parameter SHALL be present if the value of the udap_certifications_supported parameter is not an empty array. Example: ["https://www.example.com/udap/profiles/example-certification"]
grant_types_supported	required	An array of one or more grant types supported by the Authorization Server, e.g.: ["authorization_code", "refresh_token",  "client_credentials"] The "refresh_token" grant type SHALL only be included if the "authorization_code" grant type is also included.
scopes_supported	optional	An array of one or more strings containing scopes supported by the Authorization Server. The server MAY support different subsets of these scopes for different client types or entities. Example for a server that also supports SMART App Launch v1 scopes: ["openid", "launch/patient", "system/Patient.read", "system/AllergyIntolerance.read", "system/Procedures.read"]
authorization_endpoint	conditional	A string containing the absolute URL of the Authorization Server's authorization endpoint. This parameter SHALL be present if the value of the grant_types_supported parameter includes the string "authorization_code"
token_endpoint	required	A string containing the absolute URL of the Authorization Server's token endpoint for UDAP JWT-Based Client Authentication.
token_endpoint_auth_methods_supported	required	Fixed array with one value: ["private_key_jwt"]
token_endpoint_auth_signing_alg_values_supported	required	Array of strings identifying one or more signature algorithms supported by the Authorization Server for validation of signed JWTs submitted to the token endpoint for client authentication. For example: ["RS256", "ES384"]
registration_endpoint	required	A string containing the absolute URL of the Authorization Server's registration endpoint.
registration_endpoint_jwt_signing_alg_values_supported	recommended	Array of strings identifying one or more signature algorithms supported by the Authorization Server for validation of signed software statements, certification, and endorsements submitted to the registration endpoint. For example: ["RS256", "ES384"]
signed_metadata	required	A string containing a JWT listing the server's endpoints, as defined in Section 2.3 below.

An Authorization Server MAY include additional metadata elements in its metadata response as described in UDAP Server Metadata. However, a conforming client application might not support additional metadata elements.

Signed metadata elements

A server’s UDAP metadata SHALL include the signed_metadata element. The value of this element is a JWT constructed as described in Section 1.2 and containing the claims in the table below. This JWT SHALL be signed using the RS256 signature algorithm.

Signed Metadata JWT claims
iss	required	Issuer of the JWT -- unique identifying server URI. This SHALL match the value of a uniformResourceIdentifier entry in the Subject Alternative Name extension of the server's certificate included in the x5c JWT header, and SHALL be equal to the server's {baseURL}
sub	required	Same as iss.
exp	required	Expiration time integer for this JWT, expressed in seconds since the "Epoch" (1970-01-01T00:00:00Z UTC). The exp time SHALL be no more than 1 year after the value of the iat claim.
iat	required	Issued time integer for this JWT, expressed in seconds since the "Epoch"
jti	required	A nonce string value that uniquely identifies this JWT. See Section 1.2.4 for additional requirements regarding reuse of values.
authorization_endpoint	conditional	A string containing the absolute URL of the server's authorization endpoint, REQUIRED if the authorization_endpoint parameter is included in the unsigned metadata
token_endpoint	required	A string containing the absolute URL of the server's token endpoint
registration_endpoint	required	A string containing the absolute URL of the server's registration endpoint

The client SHALL validate the signed metadata returned by the server as per Section 3 of UDAP Server Metadata.

Note: The use of the signed_metadata parameter in this guide is intended to align with Section 2.1 of RFC 8414. However, the requirements specified in this section are stricter than the corresponding requirements in RFC 8414.

Multiple Trust Communities

A server that participates in more than one trust community may be issued different certificates from each community. However, the serialization method used to sign server metadata in the previous section of this guide requires the server to select only one certificate for use in assembling the signed JWT returned for the signed_metadata element. This can lead to scenarios where a client application might not trust the certificate that was selected by the server, but would have trusted one of the server’s other certificates for a different trust community.

To address this, a client application MAY add the optional query parameter community to the metadata request URL described in Section 2.1 to indicate that it trusts certificates issued by the community identified by the parameter value. The value of the parameter SHALL be a URI as determined by the trust community for this purpose.

Server support for the community parameter is optional. If a server supports this parameter and recognizes the URI value, it SHALL select a certificate intended for use within the identified trust community, if it has been issued such a certificate, and use that certificate when generating the signed JWT returned for the signed_metadata element. If a server supports different UDAP capabilities for different communities, it MAY also return different values for other metadata elements described in Section 2.2 as appropriate for the identified community. If the server does not recognize the community URI or does not have a suitable certificate for the identified community, it MAY return a 204 No Content response to the metadata request to indicate that no UDAP workflows are supported by server in the context of that community, or it MAY return its default metadata, i.e. the metadata that it would have returned if the community parameter was not included in the request.

Note: The authors recommend that the client be prepared to handle server metadata signed with a key for a different trust community than expected, regardless if the community parameter was used.