Tutorial: Microsoft Entra single sign-on (SSO) integration with Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to integrate Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client with Microsoft Entra ID. When you integrate Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client with Microsoft Entra ID, you can:

• Control in Microsoft Entra ID who has access to Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client.
• Enable your users to be automatically signed-in to Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client 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.
• Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client single sign-on (SSO) enabled subscription.

Scenario description

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

• Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client supports only IDP initiated SSO.

Adding Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client from the gallery

To configure the integration of Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client into Microsoft Entra ID, you need to add Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client 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 Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client in the search box.
4. Select Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client 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 Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client

Configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client 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 Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client.

To configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client, 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 Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client SSO - to configure the single sign-on settings on application side.
   1. Create Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client test user - to have a counterpart of B.Simon in Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client 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 > Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client > 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 edit/pen icon for Basic SAML Configuration to edit the settings.

   

5. On the Set up single sign-on with SAML page, enter the values for the following fields:

   1. In the Identifier text box, type a URL using the following pattern:
      https://<SUBDOMAIN>.YourCiscoServer.com/saml/sp/metadata/<Tunnel_Group_Name>

   2. In the Reply URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern:
      https://<YOUR_CISCO_ANYCONNECT_FQDN>/+CSCOE+/saml/sp/acs?tgname=<Tunnel_Group_Name>

   Note

   <Tunnel_Group_Name> is a case-sensitive and the value must not contain dots "." and slashes "/".

   Note

   For clarification about these values, contact Cisco TAC support. Update these values with the actual Identifier and Reply URL provided by Cisco TAC. Contact the Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client support team to get these values. You can also refer to the patterns shown in the Basic SAML Configuration section.

6. On the Set up single sign-on with SAML page, in the SAML Signing Certificate section, find Certificate (Base64) and select Download to download the certificate file and save it on your computer.

   

7. On the Set up Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client section, copy the appropriate URL(s) based on your requirement.

   

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 Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client.

1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.
2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client.
3. In the app's overview page, select Users and groups.
4. Select Add user/group, then select Users and groups in the Add Assignment dialog.
   1. In the Users and groups dialog, select B.Simon from the Users list, then click the Select button at the bottom of the screen.
   2. If you are expecting a role to be assigned to the users, you can select it from the Select a role dropdown. If no role has been set up for this app, you see "Default Access" role selected.
   3. In the Add Assignment dialog, click the Assign button.

Configure Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client SSO

1. You are going to do this on the CLI first, you might come back through and do an ASDM walk-through at another time.

2. Connect to your VPN Appliance, you are going to be using an ASA running 9.8 code train, and your VPN clients will be 4.6+.

3. First you will create a Trustpoint and import our SAML cert.

    config t
   
    crypto ca trustpoint AzureAD-AC-SAML
      revocation-check none
      no id-usage
      enrollment terminal
      no ca-check
    crypto ca authenticate AzureAD-AC-SAML
    -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
    …
    PEM Certificate Text from download goes here
    …
    -----END CERTIFICATE-----
    quit
   

4. The following commands will provision your SAML IdP.

    webvpn
    saml idp https://sts.windows.net/xxxxxxxxxxxxx/ (This is your Azure AD Identifier from the Set up Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client section in the Azure portal)
    url sign-in https://login.microsoftonline.com/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/saml2 (This is your Login URL from the Set up Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client section in the Azure portal)
    url sign-out https://login.microsoftonline.com/common/wsfederation?wa=wsignout1.0 (This is Logout URL from the Set up Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client section in the Azure portal)
    trustpoint idp AzureAD-AC-SAML
    trustpoint sp (Trustpoint for SAML Requests - you can use your existing external cert here)
    no force re-authentication
    no signature
    base-url https://my.asa.com
   

5. Now you can apply SAML Authentication to a VPN Tunnel Configuration.

   tunnel-group AC-SAML webvpn-attributes
      saml identity-provider https://sts.windows.net/xxxxxxxxxxxxx/
      authentication saml
   end
   
    write mem
   

   Note

   There is a work around with the SAML IdP configuration. If you make changes to the IdP configuration you need to remove the saml identity-provider configuration from your Tunnel Group and re-apply it for the changes to become effective.

Create Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client test user

In this section, you create a user called Britta Simon in Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client. Work with Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client support team to add the users in the Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client platform. Users must be created and activated before you use single sign-on.

Test SSO

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

• Click on Test this application, and you should be automatically signed in to the Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client for which you set up the SSO
• You can use Microsoft Access Panel. When you click the Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client tile in the Access Panel, you should be automatically signed in to the Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client for which you set up the SSO. For more information about the Access Panel, see Introduction to the Access Panel.

Next steps

Once you configure Cisco Secure Firewall - Secure Client 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.