How to configure SSO in your Code42 environment

Overview

Implementing single sign-on (SSO) provides secure authentication for users and simplifies the sign-in experience. Once enabled, users need only sign in once to your SSO identity provider to gain access to all their applications, including Code42. This article explains how to configure SSO in your Code42 environment.

For more information about how Code42 implements SSO, see our Introduction to single sign-on.

Supported SSO identity providers

Code42 supports any SSO identity provider that is SAML 2.0-compliant. The steps in this article give an overview of how to configure an SSO identity provider that supports the SCIM 2.0 protocol. This article assumes you are already familiar with SSO and the SAML standard.

For directions specific to our supported SSO identity providers, see:

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.

Compatible Code42 platform components

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: Determine the URLs for your Code42 environment

When you configure an identity provider to connect to Code42, typically you must provide the Code42 server login URL, entity ID, and Assertion Consumer Service (ACS) URL. To obtain these values:

Sign in to the Code42 console.
Navigate to Administration > Integrations > Identity Management.
Locate the Code42 service provider metadata URL:
- When setting up an authentication provider for the first time, the URL appears on the main screen:
- If you previously set up an authentication provider, the URL appears in the authentication provider details:
The first portion of the URL is your Code42 server URL, for example, https://example.com. Record this URL for use later.
To determine the login URL, add /login to the end. For example, https://example.com/login.
Copy the Code42 service provider metadata URL and paste it in the address bar of a new browser window.
Your Code42 environment's metadata details appear.
Find the entityID. Record this URL for use later.
Find the AssertionConsumerService and its Location URL value, for example, Location="https://example.com/api/SsoAuthLoginResponse". Record this URL for use later.

Step 2: Configure your SSO identity provider

The following configuration tasks are common to most SSO identity providers. The steps for configuration vary by SSO identity provider. See your provider's documentation for more details.

Configure your connection to Code42

All SSO identity providers require you to enter URLs pointing to Code42. These typically include URLs for the server sign-in (add \login to the server URL), the entity ID, and the Assertion Consumer Service (ACS) (which typically ends with /api/SsoAuthLoginResponse ). Use the values you obtained in Step 1.

For example:

Sign-in URL: https://example.com/login
Entity ID: https://example.com
Assertion Consumer Service (ACS) URL: https://example.com/api/SsoAuthLoginResponse

Note that these settings may be labeled differently in your SSO identity provider.

Copy the identity provider metadata

Each SSO identity provider provides metadata that must be provided to the target system, either in the form of a URL pointing to the metadata XML file, or the metadata file itself.

From the SSO identity provider, either copy the URL of the metadata XML file, or download the metadata XML file. In the next step, you will either paste the URL or upload the file when you add your SSO identity provider as an authentication provider in Code42.

Configure attribute mapping to Code42 (Optional)

To ensure seamless single sign-on, many SSO identity providers require that you map attributes of users in their system to attributes of users in the target system. Although the attributes in your SSO identity provider may differ from those in the table below, use mappings similar to the following to map to Code42:

Attribute in SSO identity provider	Attribute in Code42
uid	Email
mail	Email
givenName	First name
sn	Last name

Configure SAML attributes (Optional)

You can integrate any SAML 2.0-compliant identity provider with Code42. By default, you map an identity provider's username and email attributes to Code42. For added security and flexibility, you can use SAML attributes settings to set the SAML 2.0 context and class references in your identity provider's SSO requests, as well as the digest and signature algorithms to use.

For valid values to enter, see Set SAML attributes for SSO.

Step 3: Add your SSO identity provider as an authentication provider

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 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 the Code42 agent

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
SAML 2.0 specifications