Tutorial: Azure AD SSO integration with AWS IAM Identity Center

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to integrate AWS IAM Identity Center (successor to AWS Single Sign-On) with Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). When you integrate AWS IAM Identity Center with Azure AD, you can:

• Control in Azure AD who has access to AWS IAM Identity Center.
• Enable your users to be automatically signed-in to AWS IAM Identity Center 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.
• AWS IAM Identity Center enabled subscription.

Scenario description

In this tutorial, you configure and test Azure AD SSO in a test environment.

• AWS IAM Identity Center supports SP and IDP initiated SSO.

• AWS IAM Identity Center supports Automated user provisioning.

Add AWS IAM Identity Center from the gallery

To configure the integration of AWS IAM Identity Center into Azure AD, you need to add AWS IAM Identity Center 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 AWS IAM Identity Center in the search box.
6. Select AWS IAM Identity Center 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 AWS IAM Identity Center

Configure and test Azure AD SSO with AWS IAM Identity Center 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 AWS IAM Identity Center.

To configure and test Azure AD SSO with AWS IAM Identity Center, 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 AWS IAM Identity Center SSO - to configure the single sign-on settings on application side.
   1. Create AWS IAM Identity Center test user - to have a counterpart of B.Simon in AWS IAM Identity Center 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 AWS IAM Identity Center 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.

   

4. If you have Service Provider metadata file, on the Basic SAML Configuration section, perform the following steps:

   a. Click Upload metadata file.

   b. Click on folder logo to select metadata file which is explained to download in Configure AWS IAM Identity Center SSO section and click Add.

   

   c. Once the metadata file is successfully uploaded, the Identifier and Reply URL values get auto populated in Basic SAML Configuration section.

   Note

   If the Identifier and Reply URL values are not getting auto populated, then fill in the values manually according to your requirement.

   Note

   When changing identity provider in AWS (i.e. from AD to external provider such as Azure AD) the AWS metadata will change and need to be reuploaded to Azure for SSO to function correctly.

5. If you don't have Service Provider metadata file, perform the following steps on the Basic SAML Configuration section, if you wish to configure the application in IDP initiated mode, perform the following steps:

   a. In the Identifier text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://<REGION>.signin.aws.amazon.com/platform/saml/<ID>

   b. In the Reply URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://<REGION>.signin.aws.amazon.com/platform/saml/acs/<ID>

6. Click Set additional URLs and perform the following step if you wish to configure the application in SP initiated mode:

   In the Sign-on URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://portal.sso.<REGION>.amazonaws.com/saml/assertion/<ID>

   Note

   These values are not real. Update these values with the actual Identifier, Reply URL and Sign-on URL. Contact AWS IAM Identity Center 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.

7. AWS IAM Identity Center 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.

   

   Note

   If ABAC is enabled in AWS IAM Identity Center, the additional attributes may be passed as session tags directly into AWS accounts.

8. 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 and save it on your computer.

   

9. On the Set up AWS IAM Identity Center section, copy the appropriate URL(s) based on your requirement.

   

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 AWS IAM Identity Center.

1. In the Azure portal, select Enterprise Applications, and then select All applications.
2. In the applications list, select AWS IAM Identity Center.
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 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.
7. In the Add Assignment dialog, click the Assign button.

Configure AWS IAM Identity Center SSO

1. To automate the configuration within AWS IAM Identity Center, you need to install My Apps Secure Sign-in browser extension by clicking Install the extension.

   

2. After adding extension to the browser, click on Set up AWS IAM Identity Center will direct you to the AWS IAM Identity Center application. From there, provide the admin credentials to sign into AWS IAM Identity Center. The browser extension will automatically configure the application for you and automate steps 3-10.

   

3. If you want to setup AWS IAM Identity Center manually, in a different web browser window, sign in to your AWS IAM Identity Center company site as an administrator.

4. Go to the Services -> Security, Identity, & Compliance -> AWS IAM Identity Center.

5. In the left navigation pane, choose Settings.

6. On the Settings page, find Identity source, click on Actions pull-down menu, and select Change identity source.

   

7. On the Change identity source page, choose External identity provider.

   

8. Perform the below steps in the Configure external identity provider section:

   

   a. In the Service provider metadata section, find AWS SSO SAML metadata, select Download metadata file to download the metadata file and save it on your computer and use this metadata file to upload on Azure portal.

   b. Copy AWS access portal sign-in URL value, paste this value into the Sign on URL text box in the Basic SAML Configuration section in the Azure portal.

   c. In the Identity provider metadata section, select Choose file to upload the metadata file which you have downloaded from the Azure portal.

   d. Choose Next: Review.

9. In the text box, type ACCEPT to change the identity source.

   

10. Click Change identity source.

Create AWS IAM Identity Center test user

1. Open the AWS IAM Identity Center console.

2. In the left navigation pane, choose Users.

3. On the Users page, choose Add user.

4. On the Add user page, follow these steps:

   a. In the Username field, enter B.Simon.

   b. In the Email address field, enter the username@companydomain.extension. For example, B.Simon@contoso.com.

   c. In the Confirm email address field, re-enter the email address from the previous step.

   d. In the First name field, enter Jane.

   e. In the Last name field, enter Doe.

   f. In the Display name field, enter Jane Doe.

   g. Choose Next, and then Next again.

   Note

   Make sure the username entered in AWS IAM Identity Center matches the user’s Azure AD sign-in name. This will you help avoid any authentication problems.

5. Choose Add user.

6. Next, you will assign the user to your AWS account. To do so, in the left navigation pane of the AWS IAM Identity Center console, choose AWS accounts.

7. On the AWS Accounts page, select the AWS organization tab, check the box next to the AWS account you want to assign to the user. Then choose Assign users.

8. On the Assign Users page, find and check the box next to the user B.Simon. Then choose Next: Permission sets.

9. Under the select permission sets section, check the box next to the permission set you want to assign to the user B.Simon. If you don’t have an existing permission set, choose Create new permission set.

   Note

   Permission sets define the level of access that users and groups have to an AWS account. To learn more about permission sets, see the AWS IAM Identity Center Multi Account Permissions page.

10. Choose Finish.

Note

AWS IAM Identity Center 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 Azure AD single sign-on configuration with following options.

SP initiated:

• Click on Test this application in Azure portal. This will redirect to AWS IAM Identity Center sign-in URL where you can initiate the login flow.

• Go to AWS IAM Identity Center sign-in URL directly and initiate the login flow from there.

IDP initiated:

• Click on Test this application in Azure portal and you should be automatically signed in to the AWS IAM Identity Center for which you set up the SSO.

You can also use Microsoft My Apps to test the application in any mode. When you click the AWS IAM Identity Center tile in the My Apps, if configured in SP mode you would be redirected to the application sign on page for initiating the login flow and if configured in IDP mode, you should be automatically signed in to the AWS IAM Identity Center for which you set up the SSO. For more information about the My Apps, see Introduction to the My Apps.

Next steps

Once you configure AWS IAM Identity Center 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.