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Tutorial: Microsoft Entra single sign-on (SSO) integration with Appinux

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In this tutorial, you'll learn how to integrate Appinux with Microsoft Entra ID. When you integrate Appinux with Microsoft Entra ID, you can:

  • Control in Microsoft Entra ID who has access to Appinux.
  • Enable your users to be automatically signed-in to Appinux with their Microsoft Entra accounts.
  • Manage your accounts in one central location.

Prerequisites

To get started, you need the following items:

  • A Microsoft Entra subscription. If you don't have a subscription, you can get a free account.
  • Appinux single sign-on (SSO) enabled subscription.

Scenario description

In this tutorial, you configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO in a test environment.

  • Appinux supports SP initiated SSO

  • Appinux supports Just In Time user provisioning

To configure the integration of Appinux into Microsoft Entra ID, you need to add Appinux from the gallery to your list of managed SaaS apps.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > New application.
  3. In the Add from the gallery section, type Appinux in the search box.
  4. Select Appinux from results panel and then add the app. Wait a few seconds while the app is added to your tenant.

Alternatively, you can also use the Enterprise App Configuration Wizard. In this wizard, you can add an application to your tenant, add users/groups to the app, assign roles, as well as walk through the SSO configuration as well. Learn more about Microsoft 365 wizards.

Configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO for Appinux

Configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with Appinux using a test user called B.Simon. For SSO to work, you need to establish a link relationship between a Microsoft Entra user and the related user in Appinux.

To configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with Appinux, perform the following steps:

  1. Configure Microsoft Entra SSO - to enable your users to use this feature.
    1. Create a Microsoft Entra test user - to test Microsoft Entra single sign-on with B.Simon.
    2. Assign the Microsoft Entra test user - to enable B.Simon to use Microsoft Entra single sign-on.
  2. Configure Appinux SSO - to configure the single sign-on settings on application side.
    1. Create Appinux test user - to have a counterpart of B.Simon in Appinux that is linked to the Microsoft Entra representation of user.
  3. Test SSO - to verify whether the configuration works.

Configure Microsoft Entra SSO

Follow these steps to enable Microsoft Entra SSO.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.

  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > Appinux > Single sign-on.

  3. On the Select a single sign-on method page, select SAML.

  4. On the Set up single sign-on with SAML page, click the pencil icon for Basic SAML Configuration to edit the settings.

    Edit Basic SAML Configuration

  5. On the Basic SAML Configuration section, enter the values for the following fields:

    a. In the Sign on URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://<Appinux_SUBDOMAIN>.appinux.com

    b. In the Identifier (Entity ID) text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://<Appinux_SUBDOMAIN>.appinux.com/simplesaml/module.php/saml/sp/metadata.php/default-sp

    Note

    These values are not real. Update these values with the actual Sign on URL and Identifier. Contact Appinux Client support team to get these values. You can also refer to the patterns shown in the Basic SAML Configuration section.

  6. Appinux application expects the SAML assertions in a specific format, which requires you to add custom attribute mappings to your SAML token attributes configuration. The following screenshot shows the list of default attributes. Click Edit icon to open User Attributes dialog.

    image

  7. In addition to above, Appinux application expects few more attributes to be passed back in SAML response which are shown below. These attributes are also pre populated but you can review them as per your requirement.

    Name Namespace Source Attribute
    givenname http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims user.givenname
    surname http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims user.surname
    emailaddress http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims user.mail
    name http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims user.userprincipalname
    UserType http://bcv.appinux.com/claims Provide the value as per your organization
    Tag http://appinux.com/Tag Provide the value as per your organization
    Role http://schemas.microsoft.com/ws/2008/06/identity/claims/role user.assignedroles
    email http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/email user.mail
    wanshort http://appinux.com/windowsaccountname2 extractmailprefix([userprincipalname])
    nameidentifier http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims user.employeeid

    Note

    Appinux expects roles for users assigned to the application. Please set up these roles in Microsoft Entra ID so that users can be assigned the appropriate roles. To understand how to configure roles in Microsoft Entra ID, see here.

  8. On the Set up single sign-on with SAML page, in the SAML Signing Certificate section, find Federation Metadata XML and select Download to download the certificate and save it on your computer.

    The Certificate download link

  9. On the Set up Appinux section, copy the appropriate URL(s) based on your requirement.

    Copy configuration URLs

Create a Microsoft Entra test user

In this section, you'll create a test user called B.Simon.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a User Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Users > All users.
  3. Select New user > Create new user, at the top of the screen.
  4. In the User properties, follow these steps:
    1. In the Display name field, enter B.Simon.
    2. In the User principal name field, enter the [email protected]. For example, [email protected].
    3. Select the Show password check box, and then write down the value that's displayed in the Password box.
    4. Select Review + create.
  5. Select Create.

Assign the Microsoft Entra test user

In this section, you'll enable B.Simon to use single sign-on by granting access to Appinux.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > Appinux.
  3. In the app's overview page, find the Manage section and select Users and groups.
  4. Select Add user, then select Users and groups in the Add Assignment dialog.
  5. In the Users and groups dialog, select B.Simon from the Users list, then click the Select button at the bottom of the screen.
  6. If you have setup the roles as explained in the above, you can select it from the Select a role dropdown.
  7. In the Add Assignment dialog, click the Assign button.

Configure Appinux SSO

To configure single sign-on on Appinux side, you need to send the downloaded Federation Metadata XML and appropriate copied URLs from the application configuration to Appinux support team. They set this setting to have the SAML SSO connection set properly on both sides.

Create Appinux test user

In this section, a user called Britta Simon is created in Appinux. Appinux supports just-in-time user provisioning, which is enabled by default. There is no action item for you in this section. If a user doesn't already exist in Appinux, a new one is created after authentication.

Note

If you need to create a user manually, contact Appinux support team.

Test SSO

In this section, you test your Microsoft Entra single sign-on configuration with following options.

  • Click on Test this application, this will redirect to Appinux Sign-on URL where you can initiate the login flow.

  • Go to Appinux Sign-on URL directly and initiate the login flow from there.

  • You can use Microsoft My Apps. When you click the Appinux tile in the My Apps, this will redirect to Appinux Sign-on URL. For more information about the My Apps, see Introduction to the My Apps.

Next steps

Once you configure Appinux you can enforce session control, which protects exfiltration and infiltration of your organization’s sensitive data in real time. Session control extends from Conditional Access. Learn how to enforce session control with Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps.