Tutorial: Microsoft Entra single sign-on (SSO) integration with Citrix Cloud SAML SSO

Article
10/23/2023

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to integrate Citrix Cloud SAML SSO with Microsoft Entra ID. When you integrate Citrix Cloud SAML SSO with Microsoft Entra ID, you can:

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

Scenario description

In this tutorial, you configure and test Microsoft Entra 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 Microsoft Entra ID, you need to add Citrix Cloud SAML SSO from the gallery to your list of managed SaaS apps.

Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.
Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > 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 Microsoft Entra SSO for Citrix Cloud SAML SSO

Configure and test Microsoft Entra 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 a Microsoft Entra user and the related user in Citrix Cloud SAML SSO. This user must also exist in your Active Directory that is synced with Microsoft Entra Connect to your Microsoft Entra subscription.

To configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with Citrix Cloud SAML SSO, perform the following steps:

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

Configure Microsoft Entra SSO

Follow these steps to enable Microsoft Entra SSO.

Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.
Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > Citrix Cloud SAML SSO > 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.
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 a Microsoft Entra test user

In this section, you'll create a test user called B.Simon.

Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a User Administrator.
Browse to Identity > Users > All users.
Select New user > Create new user, at the top of the screen.
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.
Select Create.

Note

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

Assign the Microsoft Entra test user

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

Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.
Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > Citrix Cloud SAML SSO.
In the app's overview page, select Users and groups.
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 Citrix Cloud SAML SSO

In a different web browser window, sign in to your up 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 Microsoft Entra Identifier value which you copied previously.

b. In the Sign Authentication Request, select Yes, if you want to use SAML Request signing, else select No.

c. In the SSO Service URL textbox, paste the Login URL value which you copied previously.

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) 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 Microsoft Entra 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.