Microsoft Entra single sign-on (SSO) integration with Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager
Article
In this tutorial, you'll learn how to integrate Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager with Microsoft Entra ID. When you integrate Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager with Microsoft Entra ID, you can:
Control in Microsoft Entra ID who has access to Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager.
Enable your users to be automatically signed-in to Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager 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.
Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager single sign-on (SSO) enabled subscription.
Scenario description
In this tutorial, you configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO in a test environment.
Add Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager from the gallery
To configure the integration of Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager into Microsoft Entra ID, you need to add Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager from the gallery to your list of managed SaaS apps.
Configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO for Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager
Configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager 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 Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager.
To configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager, perform the following steps:
Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager > 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 steps:
a. In the Sign on URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern:
https://<PUBLISHED VIRTUAL SERVER FQDN>/saml/consume
b. In the Identifier (Entity ID) text box, type a URL using the following pattern:
https://<PUBLISHED VIRTUAL SERVER FQDN>/saml/metadata
c. In the Reply URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern:
https://<PUBLISHED VIRTUAL SERVER FQDN>/saml/consume
Note
These values are not real. Update these values with the actual Sign on URL,Reply URL and Identifier. Contact Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager Client support team to get these values. You can also refer to the patterns shown in the Basic SAML Configuration section.
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.
On the Set up Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager 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.
In the app's overview page, select Users and groups.
Select Add user/group, 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.
This section covers the configuration needed to enable Microsoft Entra SAML authentication on the Pulse Virtual Traffic Manager. All configuration changes are made on the Pulse Virtual Traffic Manager using the Admin web UI.
Create a SAML Trusted Identity Provider
a. Go to the Pulse Virtual Traffic Manager Appliance Admin UI > Catalog > SAML > Trusted Identity Providers Catalog page and click Edit.
b. Add the details for the new SAML Trusted Identity Provider, copying the information from the Microsoft Entra Enterprise application under the Single sign-on settings page and then click Create New Trusted Identity Provider.
In the Name textbox, enter a name for the trusted identity provider.
In the Entity_id textbox, enter the Microsoft Entra Identifier value which you copied previously.
In the Url textbox, enter the Login URL value which you copied previously.
Open the downloaded Certificate into Notepad and paste the content into the Certificate textbox.
c. Verify that the new SAML Identity Provider was successfully created.
Configure the Virtual Server to use Microsoft Entra authentication
a. Go to the Pulse Virtual Traffic Manager Appliance Admin UI > Services > Virtual Servers page and click Edit next to the previously created Virtual server.
b. In the Authentication section, click Edit.
c. Configure the following authentication settings for the virtual server:
Authentication -
a. In the Auth!type, select SAML Service Provider.
b. In the Auth!verbose, set to “Yes” to troubleshoot any authentication issues, otherwise, leave default as “No”.
Authentication Session Management -
a. For Auth!session!cookie_name, leave default as “VS_SamlSP_Auth”.
b. For auth!session!timeout, leave default to “7200”.
c. In auth!session!log_external_state, set to “Yes” to troubleshoot any authentication issues, otherwise, leave default as “No”.
d. In auth!session!cookie_attributes, change to “HTTPOnly”.
SAML Service Provider -
a. In the auth!saml!sp_entity_id textbox, set to the same URL used as the Microsoft Entra Single sign-on configuration Identifier (Entity ID). Like https://pulseweb.labb.info/saml/metadata.
b. In the auth!saml!sp_acs_url, set to the same URL used as the Microsoft Entra Single sign-on configuration Replay URL (Assertion Consumer Service URL). Like https://pulseweb.labb.info/saml/consume.
c. In the auth!saml!idp, select the Trusted Identity Provider you created in previous step.
d. In the auth!saml!time_tolerance, leave default to “5” seconds.
e. In the auth!saml!nameid_format, select unspecified.
f. Apply changes by clicking Update on the bottom of the page.
Create Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager test user
In this section, you create a user called Britta Simon in Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager. Work with Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager support team to add the users in the Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager platform. Users must be created and activated before you use single sign-on.
Test SSO
In this section, you test your Microsoft Entra single sign-on configuration with following options.
Click on Test this application, this will redirect to Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager Sign-on URL where you can initiate the login flow.
Go to Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager Sign-on URL directly and initiate the login flow from there.
You can use Microsoft My Apps. When you click the Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager tile in the My Apps, this will redirect to Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager Sign-on URL. For more information about the My Apps, see Introduction to the My Apps.
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