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Tutorial: Azure Active Directory single sign-on (SSO) integration with Appinux

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  • 6 minutes to read

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to integrate Appinux with Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). When you integrate Appinux with Azure AD, you can:

  • Control in Azure AD who has access to Appinux.
  • Enable your users to be automatically signed-in to Appinux with their Azure AD accounts.
  • Manage your accounts in one central location - the Azure portal.

Prerequisites

To get started, you need the following items:

  • An Azure AD 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 Azure AD SSO in a test environment.

  • Appinux supports SP initiated SSO

  • Appinux supports Just In Time user provisioning

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

  1. Sign in to the Azure portal using either a work or school account, or a personal Microsoft account.
  2. On the left navigation pane, select the Azure Active Directory service.
  3. Navigate to Enterprise Applications and then select All Applications.
  4. To add new application, select New application.
  5. In the Add from the gallery section, type Appinux in the search box.
  6. 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 Azure AD SSO for Appinux

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

To configure and test Azure AD SSO with Appinux, perform the following steps:

  1. Configure Azure AD SSO - to enable your users to use this feature.
    1. Create an Azure AD test user - to test Azure AD single sign-on with B.Simon.
    2. Assign the Azure AD test user - to enable B.Simon to use Azure AD 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 Azure AD representation of user.
  3. Test SSO - to verify whether the configuration works.

Configure Azure AD SSO

Follow these steps to enable Azure AD SSO in the Azure portal.

  1. In the Azure portal, on the Appinux application integration page, find the Manage section and select single sign-on.

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

  3. 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

  4. 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 in the Azure portal.

  5. 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

  6. 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 Azure AD so that users can be assigned the appropriate roles. To understand how to configure roles in Azure AD, see here.

  7. 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

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

    Copy configuration URLs

Create an Azure AD test user

In this section, you'll create a test user in the Azure portal called B.Simon.

  1. From the left pane in the Azure portal, select Azure Active Directory, select Users, and then select All users.
  2. Select New user at the top of the screen.
  3. In the User properties, follow these steps:
    1. In the Name field, enter B.Simon.
    2. In the User 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. Click Create.

Assign the Azure AD test user

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

  1. In the Azure portal, select Enterprise Applications, and then select All applications.
  2. In the applications list, select 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 Azure portal 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 Azure AD single sign-on configuration with following options.

  • Click on Test this application in Azure portal. 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.