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Tutorial: Azure AD SSO integration with Cobalt

  • Article
  • 5 minutes to read

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

  • Control in Azure AD who has access to Cobalt.
  • Enable your users to be automatically signed-in to Cobalt 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.
  • Cobalt single sign-on (SSO) enabled subscription.

Scenario description

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

  • Cobalt supports SP initiated SSO.

Note

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

To configure the integration of Cobalt into Azure AD, you need to add Cobalt 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 Cobalt in the search box.
  6. Select Cobalt 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 Cobalt

Configure and test Azure AD SSO with Cobalt 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 Cobalt.

To configure and test Azure AD SSO with Cobalt, 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 Cobalt SSO - to configure the single sign-on settings on application side.
    1. Create Cobalt test user - to have a counterpart of B.Simon in Cobalt 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 Cobalt 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, perform the following step:

    In the Sign-on URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://brightside-prod-<INSTANCENAME>.cobaltdl.com

    Note

    The value is not real. Update the value with the actual Sign-On URL. Contact Cobalt Client support team to get the value. You can also refer to the patterns shown in the Basic SAML Configuration section in the Azure portal.

  5. Cobalt 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.

    image

  6. In addition to above, Cobalt 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 Source Attribute
    Mail user.mail
    Othermail user.othermail

  7. 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.

    The Certificate download link

  8. On the Set up Cobalt 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 Cobalt.

  1. In the Azure portal, select Enterprise Applications, and then select All applications.
  2. In the applications list, select Cobalt.
  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 Cobalt SSO

  1. Login to the Cobalt website as an administrator.

  2. Select Settings on the left menu.

  3. Select Identity & Access, and select Enable in SAML 2.0.

    Screenshot for Settings page

  4. Perform the following steps in the SAML 2.0 section.

    Screenshot for configuration page

    1. In the IDP ISSUER URL textbox, paste the Azure AD Identifier value which you have copied from the Azure portal.
    2. In the IDP TARGET URL textbox, paste the Login URL value which you have copied from the Azure portal.
    3. Open the downloaded Certificate (Base64) from the Azure portal into Notepad and paste the content into the IDP CERTIFICATE textbox.

  5. Click SAVE.

Note

Please follow this article for more information on how to configure SSO on Cobalt side.

Create Cobalt test user

In this section, you create a user called B.Simon in Cobalt. Work with Cobalt support team to add the users in the Cobalt platform. Users must be created and activated before you use single sign-on.

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 Cobalt Sign-on URL where you can initiate the login flow.

  • Go to Cobalt Sign-on URL directly and initiate the login flow from there.

  • You can use Microsoft My Apps. When you click the Cobalt tile in the My Apps, this will redirect to Cobalt Sign-on URL. For more information about the My Apps, see Introduction to the My Apps.

Next steps

After you configure Cobalt, 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 Cloud App Security.