Why on-premise app for SCIM provisioning in Azure does not have the option for OAuth authentication?

Question

When we create On-premises SCIM app in Azure, following this article (Section: Install and configure the Microsoft Entra Connect Provisioning Agent), for Authentication Method we see a dropdown with only one option Bearer Authentication (screenshot 1). When we create a SCIM app in Azure, following this article (Section: Integrate your SCIM endpoint with the Microsoft Entra provisioning service) in the dropdown there are three authentication methods (screenshot 2). There are Bearer Authentication, OAuth2 Authorization Code Grant, Oauth2 Client Credentials Grant. What should we do to display the option OAuth2 Authorization Code Grant in the On-premises SCIM app?

Answer 1

Hi @Spasova, Monika

Thank you for reaching us!

The on-premises SCIM provisioning application in Azure currently supports only Bearer Authentication and does not offer OAuth authentication methods such as OAuth Authorization Code Grant or OAuth2 Client Credentials Grant. The reason for the lack of OAuth authentication in the on-premises SCIM provisioning app in Azure is due to the security and infrastructure differences between on-premises and cloud environments.

The OAuth authorization code grant flow requires a publicly accessible endpoint for the authorization server and relies on external identity providers, which might not be feasible for on-premises applications. This is why the on-premises SCIM app in Azure uses Bearer Authentication instead OAuth authentication methods. The bearer token, issued by the Entra ID provisioning service, is included in the header of each request to authenticate the request. The bearer token is issued by the Entra ID provisioning service and is used to authenticate the requests sent to the on-premises application.

Hope this helps. Do let us know if you any further queries.

Thanks,

Akhilesh.

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