DS-1906: Adds configurable option to reconvert shibboleth attributes.

dspace-api/src/main/java/org/dspace/authenticate/ShibAuthentication.java

@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ import java.util.Iterator;
 import java.util.List;
 import java.util.Map;
 import java.util.Set;
+import java.util.logging.Level;
 
 import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
 
@@ -1094,6 +1095,22 @@ public class ShibAuthentication implements AuthenticationMethod
 			value = request.getHeader(name.toLowerCase());
 		if (StringUtils.isEmpty(value))
 			value = request.getHeader(name.toUpperCase());
+                
+                boolean reconvertAttributes = 
+                        ConfigurationManager.getBooleanProperty(
+                            "authentication-shibboleth",
+                            "reconvert.attributes",
+                            false);
+                
+                if (reconvertAttributes)
+                {
+                    try {
+                        value = new String(value.getBytes("ISO-8859-1"), "UTF-8");
+                    } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException ex) {
+                        log.warn("Failed to reconvert shibboleth attribute ("
+                                + name + ").", ex);
+                    }
+                }
 		
 		return value;
 	}

dspace/config/modules/authentication-shibboleth.cfg

@@ -137,6 +137,12 @@ lastname-header = SHIB-SURNAME
 # If the eperson metadata field is not found, should it be automatically created?
 eperson.metadata.autocreate = true;
 
+# Shibboleth attributes are by default UTF-8 encoded. Some servlet container
+# automatically converts the attributes from ISO-8859-1 (latin-1) to UTF-8.
+# As the attributes already were UTF-8 encoded it may be necessary to reconvert
+# them. If you detect problems with special characters in shibboleth attributes
+# set this to true (default to false).
+reconvert.attributes = false
 
 ##
 ## Role-based Groups: