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Tutorial: Microsoft Entra integration with SolarWinds Service Desk (previously Samanage)

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

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

Note

This integration is also available to use from Microsoft Entra US Government Cloud environment. You can find this application in the Microsoft Entra US Government Cloud Application Gallery and configure it in the same way as you do from public cloud.

Scenario description

In this tutorial, you configure and test Microsoft Entra single sign-on in a test environment.

To configure the integration of SolarWinds into Microsoft Entra ID, you need to add SolarWinds 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 SolarWinds in the search box.
  4. Select SolarWinds 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 SolarWinds

Configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with SolarWinds 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 SolarWinds.

To configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with SolarWinds, 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 SolarWinds SSO - to configure the single sign-on settings on application side.
    1. Create SolarWinds test user - to have a counterpart of B.Simon in SolarWinds 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 > SolarWinds > 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, perform the following steps:

    a. In the Sign on URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://<Company Name>.samanage.com/saml_login/<Company Name>

    b. In the Identifier (Entity ID) text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://<Company Name>.samanage.com

    Note

    These values are not real. Update these values with the actual Sign-on URL and Identifier, which is explained later in the tutorial. For more details contact Samanage Client support team. 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, click Download to download the Certificate (Base64) from the given options as per your requirement and save it on your computer.

    The Certificate download link

  7. On the Set up SolarWinds section, copy the appropriate URL(s) as per 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 username@companydomain.extension. For example, B.Simon@contoso.com.
    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 SolarWinds.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > SolarWinds.
  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 SolarWinds SSO

  1. In a different web browser window, log into your SolarWinds company site as an administrator.

  2. Click Dashboard and select Setup in left navigation pane.

    Dashboard

  3. Click Single Sign-On.

    Single Sign-On

  4. Navigate to Login using SAML section, perform the following steps:

    Login using SAML

    a. Click Enable Single Sign-On with SAML.

    b. In the Identity Provider URL textbox, enter the value like https://YourAccountName.samanage.com.

    c. Confirm the Login URL matches the Sign On URL of Basic SAML Configuration section in Azure portal.

    d. In the Logout URL textbox, enter the value of Logout URL..

    e. In the SAML Issuer textbox, type the app id URI set in your identity provider.

    f. Open your base-64 encoded certificate downloaded from Azure portal in notepad, copy the content of it into your clipboard, and then paste it to the Paste your Identity Provider x.509 Certificate below textbox.

    g. Click Create users if they do not exist in SolarWinds.

    h. Click Update.

Create SolarWinds test user

To enable Microsoft Entra users to log in to SolarWinds, they must be provisioned into SolarWinds.
In the case of SolarWinds, provisioning is a manual task.

To provision a user account, perform the following steps:

  1. Log into your SolarWinds company site as an administrator.

  2. Click Dashboard and select Setup in left navigation pan.

    Setup

  3. Click the Users tab

    Users

  4. Click New User.

    New User

  5. Type the Name and the Email Address of a Microsoft Entra account you want to provision and click Create user.

    Create User

    Note

    The Microsoft Entra account holder will receive an email and follow a link to confirm their account before it becomes active. You can use any other SolarWinds user account creation tools or APIs provided by SolarWinds to provision Microsoft Entra user accounts.

Note

SolarWinds also supports automatic user provisioning, you can find more details here on how to configure automatic user provisioning.

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 SolarWinds Sign-on URL where you can initiate the login flow.

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

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

Next steps

Once you configure SolarWinds 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.