Configure Shibboleth for SSO in your Code42 cloud environment

Overview

This tutorial explains how to configure your Code42 cloud environment to use single sign-on (SSO) with Shibboleth.

This article assumes you are already familiar with SSO and the SAML standard. For more information about how the Code42 platform implements SSO, see our Introduction to single sign-on.

Compatible Code42 platform components

Considerations

External authentication systems
Our Technical Support Engineers can help with authentication issues caused by interaction with Code42 products. However, troubleshooting authentication issues outside your Code42 environment is beyond the scope of our Technical Support Engineers. For assistance with external authentication systems, contact your authentication vendor.

To use this functionality, you must be assigned the Identity Management Administrator role.
Code42 usernames must match SSO usernames. How you accomplish this depends on how you deploy Code42 agents.
Code42 supports service provider-initiated SSO but does not support identity provider-initiated SSO. Therefore, users cannot sign in to your Code42 environment from the identity provider's website or application, but instead must log in using a browser bookmark.
SSO provides user authentication but does not provide user management. Set up SCIM provisioning or use the Code42 console to manage users.
Code42 does not support Single Logout (SLO). Users must sign out of the identity provider to end their single sign-on session.
The Code42 console expects SAML assertions to be signed. To configure Code42 to support advanced SAML request configurations, see Set SAML attributes for SSO.

Before you begin

Verify identity provider configuration

Make sure the SSL certificate of your SSO identity provider has been signed by a trusted Certificate Authority (CA).
Make sure you have administrative access to the identity provider or have contact with an identity provider administrator.

Verify network configuration

Configure your private network, Internet, and VPN settings to allow client devices to communicate with your identity provider on port 443. Test client connectivity to the identity provider before you proceed.
If you want to use URL-based metadata exchange to configure Code42 and the identity provider to work together, make sure two-way communication is available between them on TCP port 443. If two-way communication is not available or not allowed, you must download the identity provider's metadata file and make it accessible to Code42.
Confirm the required ports with your identity provider to determine if custom ports are being used.

Determine whether you need to configure multiple Code42 tenants

Before you begin configuring SSO for Code42, consider whether your company has more than one Code42 tenant that you need to connect to your SSO identity provider. Large companies and organizations often have separate, dedicated Code42 cloud instances (or "tenants") in use by different groups or departments.

If you have more than one Code42 tenant to connect to your SSO identity provider, you need to obtain an entity ID URL for each Code42 tenant. An entity ID is a unique string that identifies a specific tenant to your SSO identity provider. The tenant-specific entity ID URL is composed of the Code42 domain followed by the tenant ID, and can be found in the Code42 service provider metadata URL file in each tenant. For example:

"entityId": "https://example.com/42424daa-424c-4e42-42c4-c424242420d4"

Step 1: Add an authentication provider

Follow the steps below for adding the authentication provider's metadata URL to the Code42 console. If your organization is part of the InCommon federation, you can add the InCommon metadata, and select your organization's metadata URL from the list. Follow the steps under Shibboleth if you are not part of the InCommon federation.

InCommon

Step 1: Enter the InCommon metadata

Sign in to the Code42 console.
Navigate to Administration > Integrations > Identity Management.
Click Add Authentication Provider.
In Display Name, enter the federation name.
In Provider's Metadata, ensure that Enter URL is selected and paste the URL. For the InCommon federation, use the IdP-only aggregate: https://mdq.incommon.org/entities/idps/all

Click Create Provider.
Code42 automatically detects that the provider's metadata URL belongs to a federation, and details for the federation appear.

Step 2: Select your identity provider

Shibboleth

Enter Shibboleth metadata

Use the Shibboleth metadata URL provided by your institution.

Sign in to the Code42 console.
Navigate to Administration > Integrations > Identity Management.
Click Add authentication provider.
The Add Authentication Provider dialog appears.
In Display Name, enter an identity provider name to display to users who sign in with SSO.
If your Code42 environment provides more than one SSO identity provider, users see a list of providers to choose from. They must select the provider configured for their Code42 organization.
In Provider's Metadata, ensure that Enter URL is selected and paste the URL for the identity provider metadata XML file, or click Upload XML File and select the XML file for upload.

Custom domains are not supported
When entering the URL for the XML metadata file, custom domains are not supported. You must use the standard domain of your identity provider.
Click Create Provider.
Authentication provider settings appear.

Provider information message

Note the following message on the dialog:
This provider will not be applied to an organization until you update the organization security settings.

Do not apply this authentication provider to organizations yet. You will apply this provider to a test organization and to production organizations in later steps.

If you choose not to use default mapping, you can use Attribute Mapping to customize mappings between Code42 platform user attributes and authentication provider SSO assertion attributes.
1. Click Edit.
2. Deselect Use default mapping.
3. Configure mapping settings for each Code42 platform user attribute.
  Each field supports up to 128 characters.
  - Username: Specify the identity provider's name ID or attribute that maps to the Code42 username.
    
    Select Use nameid to use the identity provider's name ID.
    
    Select Use attribute tag to enter a custom identity provider attribute.
  - Email (Use nameid only): Enter the identity provider attribute that contains user email addresses.
  - First Name: Enter the identity provider attribute that contains user first names.
  - Last Name: Enter the identity provider attribute that contains user last names.
4. Click Save.
(Optional) Local Users displays the current user. If there are any other users you want to exempt from using this authentication provider to log in, enter them here.

Step 2: Prepare Shibboleth

There are two ways to exchange metadata between your Code42 environment and the Shibboleth identity provider:

If two-way communication is possible between Shibboleth and your {{c42cloud}} instance, use URL-based metadata exchange. This method periodically retrieves metadata from a given URL and stores the metadata file locally, so it can be used if the remote source is unavailable.
If two-way communication is not available, use file-based metadata exchange.

For more information about adding a service provider to Shibboleth, see the Shibboleth documentation.

Shibboleth option A: URL-based metadata exchange

Configure your Code42 environment as a file-backed HTTP metadata provider.

Make sure the Shibboleth identity provider can access the Code42 service provider metadata URL.
Find your Code42 environment's metadata URL under Administration > Integrations > Identity Management on the Authentication Providers tab.
Configure your Shibboleth identity provider to accept authentication requests from your Code42 environment.
- Edit the file ${Shibboleth}/conf/relying-party.xml.
- Add or modify the MetadataProvider element for your Code42 environment.
  Copied!
```
<MetadataProvider xsi:type="FileBackedHTTPMetadataProvider" xmlns="urn:mace:shibboleth:2.0:metadata"
                  id="Code42_Environment"
                  metadataURL="https://console.us.code42.com/api/SsoAuthSpMetadata?registrationkey=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
                  backingFile="/tmp/idp-metadata.xml" />
```
  Set the following values by modifying the text between the quotes:
  - id: A name for your Code42 environment.
  - metadataURL: Your Code42 environment's service provider metadata URL.
  - backingFile: The path to the backup copy of the service provider metadata file on the identity provider.

Shibboleth option B: File-based metadata exchange

Configure Code42 as a filesystem metadata provider.

Download the Code42 service provider metadata file, and upload it to the identity provider.
The service provider metadata file is located in the Code42 console in the authentication provider details.
Configure your Shibboleth identity provider to accept authentication requests from Code42.
- Edit the file ${Shibboleth}/conf/relying-party.xml.
- Add or modify the MetadataProvider element.
  Copied!
```
<MetadataProvider xsi:type="FilesystemMetadataProvider" xmlns="urn:mace:shibboleth:2.0:metadata"
                  id="Code42_Environment"
                  metadataFile="/path/to/my/metadata.xml" />
```
  Set the following values by modifying the text between the quotes:
  - id: A name for your Code42 environment.
  - metadataFile: The path to the Code42 service provider metadata file on the Shibboleth identity provider.

Configure your Shibboleth identity provider to sign assertions

The Code42 console expects assertions to be signed. See Shibboleth's documentation for more information.

Edit the file ${Shibboleth}/conf/relying-party.xml.
Add or modify the ProfileConfiguration element, for example:

<RelyingParty id="urn:example.org" provider="https://idp.example.org" defaultSigningCredentialRef="ExampleOrgCred">
    <ProfileConfiguration xsi:type="saml:SAML2SSOProfile" signAssertions="always"/>
</RelyingParty>

Set the signAssertions attribute to always.

Step 4: Test SSO authentication

To avoid impacting your production environment, use a test organization to verify that SSO is working properly.

Create a test user in your identity provider.
Sign in to the Code42 console.
Create a test organization.
Create a user in the test organization who matches the identity provider test user.
Configure the test organization to use SSO:
1. Navigate to Administration > Integrations > Identity Management.
2. Select the authentication provider.
3. Click Edit next to Organizations in use.
4. Select the test organization.
  Note that you can also use an organization's settings to select an authentication provider to use for SSO.
5. Click Save.
In the upper-right of the Code42 console, select Account > Sign Out.
Sign back in to the Code42 console as the test user to verify that SSO is working.

Step 5: Configure organizations to use SSO

Sign in to the Code42 console.
Navigate to Administration > Integrations > Identity Management.
Select the authentication provider.
Click Edit next to Organizations in use.
Select organizations to use the authtenication provider for SSO.
If applicable, select the Inherits settings to identify whether an organization inherits the setting from its parent organization. To enable SSO for all organizations, select the top-most organization. (Note that you can also use an organization's settings to select an authentication provider to use for SSO.)
Click Save.

Step 6: Add new users that sign in with SSO

Option A: Add users in the Code42 console

Option B: Deploy Code42 agents

What to expect

Reduced authentication prompts

When users sign in with SSO, they do not need to re-enter credentials for subsequent authentication attempts until the SAML authentication token expires. A SAML token applies to an application rather than a device, which means that a user might need to enter credentials again when signing into a different app.

For example, the single sign-in process differs whether users sign in to the Code42 console or Code42 agents:

Code42 console: When users sign in to the Code42 console, they are redirected in the web browser to sign in to their SSO identity provider. As soon as they sign in to their identity provider, the Code42 console launches.
Code42 agents (Incydr Basic, Advanced, and Gov F1 only): When users sign in to Code42 agents, following message appears: "To complete the sign in process, go to your web browser. This screen updates automatically once login is successful." A web browser window is automatically opened so they can complete the sign-in process in their SSO identity provider. As soon as they sign in to their SSO identity provider in the provided web browser window, the Code42 agent launches.

Losing access to an identity provider

Incydr Basic, Advanced, and Gov F1 only

If a user loses access to the identity provider, Code42 agents continue to back up, uninterrupted.

External resources

Wikipedia:
- Single sign-on
- SAML
Shibboleth:
- Metadata Configuration
- FilesystemMetadataProvider