Tutorial: Azure Active Directory single sign-on (SSO) integration with Citrix Cloud SAML SSO

Article
03/16/2023
6 minutes to read

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

Control in Azure AD who has access to Citrix Cloud SAML SSO.
Enable your users to be automatically signed-in to Citrix Cloud SAML SSO 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.
A Citrix Cloud subscription. If you don’t have a subscription, sign up for one.

Scenario description

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

Citrix Cloud SAML SSO supports SP initiated SSO.

Note

Identifier of this application is a fixed string value so only one instance can be configured in one tenant.

Add Citrix Cloud SAML SSO from the gallery

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

Sign in to the Azure portal using either a work or school account, or a personal Microsoft account.
On the left navigation pane, select the Azure Active Directory service.
Navigate to Enterprise Applications and then select All Applications.
To add new application, select New application.
In the Add from the gallery section, type Citrix Cloud SAML SSO in the search box.
Select Citrix Cloud SAML SSO 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 Citrix Cloud SAML SSO

Configure and test Azure AD SSO with Citrix Cloud SAML SSO 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 Citrix Cloud SAML SSO.This user must also exist in your Active Directory that is synced with Azure AD Connect to your Azure AD subscription.

To configure and test Azure AD SSO with Citrix Cloud SAML SSO, perform the following steps:

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.
Configure Citrix Cloud SAML SSO - to configure the single sign-on settings on application side.
Test SSO - to verify whether the configuration works.

Configure Azure AD SSO

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

In the Azure portal, on the Citrix Cloud SAML SSO application integration page, find the Manage section and select single sign-on.
On the Select a single sign-on method page, select SAML.
On the Set up single sign-on with SAML page, click the pencil icon for Basic SAML Configuration to edit the settings.
On the Basic SAML Configuration section, perform the following step:

In the Sign-on URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://<SUBDOMAIN>.cloud.com

Note

The value is not real. Update the value with your Citrix Workspace URL. Access your Citrix Cloud account to get the value. You can also refer to the patterns shown in the Basic SAML Configuration section in the Azure portal.
Citrix Cloud SAML SSO 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.

In addition to above, Citrix Cloud SAML SSO 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 requirements.The values passed in the SAML response should map to the Active Directory attributes of the user.

Name	Source Attribute
cip_sid	user.onpremisesecurityidentifier
cip_upn	user.userprincipalname
cip_oid	ObjectGUID (Extension Attribute )
cip_email	user.mail
displayName	user.displayname

Note

ObjectGUID must be configured manually according to your requirements.

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

From the left pane in the Azure portal, select Azure Active Directory, select Users, and then select All users.
Select New user at the top of the screen.
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.
Note

This user needs to be synced from an Active Directory. For SSO to work, you need to establish a link relationship between an Azure AD user and the related user in Citrix Cloud SAML SSO.

Assign the Azure AD test user

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

In the Azure portal, select Enterprise Applications, and then select All applications.
In the applications list, select Citrix Cloud SAML SSO.
In the app's overview page, find the Manage section and select Users and groups.
Select Add user, then select Users and groups in the Add Assignment dialog.
In the Users and groups dialog, select B.Simon from the Users list, then click the Select button at the bottom of the screen.
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.
In the Add Assignment dialog, click the Assign button.

Configure Citrix Cloud SAML SSO

To automate the configuration within Citrix Cloud SAML SSO, you need to install My Apps Secure Sign-in browser extension by clicking Install the extension.
After adding extension to the browser, click on Set up Citrix Cloud SAML SSO will direct you to the Citrix Cloud SAML SSO application. From there, provide the admin credentials to sign in to Citrix Cloud SAML SSO. The browser extension will automatically configure the application for you and automate steps 3-6.
If you want to set up Citrix Cloud SAML SSO manually, log in to your Citrix Cloud SAML SSO company site as an administrator.
Navigate to the Citrix Cloud menu and select Identity and Access Management.
Under Authentication, locate SAML 2.0 and select Connect from the ellipsis menu.
In the Configure SAML page, perform the following steps.

a. In the Entity ID textbox, paste the Azure AD Identifier value which you have copied from the Azure portal.

b. In the Sign Authentication Request, select No.

c. In the SSO Service URL textbox, paste the Login URL value which you have copied from the Azure portal.

d. Select Binding Mechanism from the drop down, you can select either HTTP-POST or HTTP-Redirect binding.

e. Under SAML Response, select Sign Either Response or Assertion from the dropdown.

f. Upload the Certificate (PEM) from the Azure portal into the X.509 Certificate section.

g. In the Authentication Context, select Unspecified and Exact from the dropdown.

h. Click Test and Finish.

Test SSO

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

Access your Citrix Workspace URL directly and initiate the login flow from there.
Log in with your AD-Synced Active Directory user into your Citrix Workspace to complete the test.

Next steps

Once you configure Citrix Cloud SAML SSO 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.