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Tutorial: Azure AD SSO integration with IBMid

  • Article
  • 6 minutes to read

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

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

Scenario description

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

  • IBMid supports SP and IDP initiated SSO.
  • IBMid supports Just In Time user provisioning.

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 IBMid into Azure AD, you need to add IBMid 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 IBMid in the search box.
  6. Select IBMid 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 IBMid

Configure and test Azure AD SSO with IBMid 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 IBMid.

To configure and test Azure AD SSO with IBMid, 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 IBMid SSO - to configure the single sign-on settings on application side.
    1. Create IBMid test user - to have a counterpart of B.Simon in IBMid 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 IBMid 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, if you wish to configure the application in IDP initiated mode, perform the following steps:

    a. In the Identifier text box, type one of the following URLs:

    Identifier
    Production :
    https://ibmlogin.ice.ibmcloud.com/saml/sps/saml20sp/saml20
    Pre-Production :
    https://prepiam.ice.ibmcloud.com/saml/sps/saml20sp/saml20

    b. In the Reply URL text box, type one of the following URLs:

    Reply URL
    Production :
    https://login.ibm.com/saml/sps/saml20sp/saml20/login
    Pre-Production :
    https://prepiam.ice.ibmcloud.com/saml/sps/saml20sp/saml20/login

  5. 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 the URL: https://login.ibm.com

  6. Click Save.

  7. IBMid 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

  8. In addition to above, IBMid 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.

    Name Source Attribute
    country user.country
    firstName user.givenname
    lastName user.surname
    emailAddress user.mail

  9. 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

  10. On the Set up IBMid 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 IBMid.

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

To configure single sign-on on IBMid side, you need to send the downloaded Federation Metadata XML and appropriate copied URLs from Azure portal to IBMid support team. They set this setting to have the SAML SSO connection set properly on both sides.

Create IBMid test user

In this section, a user called Britta Simon is created in IBMid. IBMid 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 IBMid, a new one is created after authentication.

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 IBMid Sign on URL where you can initiate the login flow.

  • Go to IBMid Sign-on 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 IBMid 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 IBMid 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 IBMid 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 IBMid 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.