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Tutorial: Microsoft Entra single sign-on (SSO) integration with Cisco Intersight

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In this tutorial, you'll learn how to integrate Cisco Intersight with Microsoft Entra ID. When you integrate Cisco Intersight with Microsoft Entra ID, you can:

  • Control in Microsoft Entra ID who has access to Cisco Intersight.
  • Enable your users to be automatically signed-in to Cisco Intersight 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.
  • Cisco Intersight single sign-on (SSO) enabled subscription.

Scenario description

In this tutorial, you configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO in a test environment.

  • Cisco Intersight 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 Cisco Intersight into Microsoft Entra ID, you need to add Cisco Intersight from the gallery to your list of managed SaaS apps.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > New application.
  3. In the Add from the gallery section, type Cisco Intersight in the search box.
  4. Select Cisco Intersight 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 Cisco Intersight

Configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with Cisco Intersight 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 Cisco Intersight.

To configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with Cisco Intersight, perform the following steps:

  1. 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.
  2. Configure Cisco Intersight SSO - to configure the single sign-on settings on application side.
    1. Create Cisco Intersight test user - to have a counterpart of B.Simon in Cisco Intersight that is linked to the Microsoft Entra representation of user.
  3. Test SSO - to verify whether the configuration works.

Configure Microsoft Entra SSO

Follow these steps to enable Microsoft Entra SSO.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.

  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > Cisco Intersight > Single sign-on.

  3. On the Select a single sign-on method page, select SAML.

  4. 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

  5. On the Basic SAML Configuration section, enter the values for the following fields:

    a. In the Sign on URL text box, type the URL: https://intersight.com

    b. In the Identifier (Entity ID) text box, type the URL: www.intersight.com

  6. Your Cisco Intersight 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 an example for this. The default value of Unique User Identifier is user.userprincipalname but Cisco Intersight expects this to be mapped with the user's email address. For that you can use user.mail attribute from the list or use the appropriate attribute value based on your organization configuration..

    image

  7. In addition to above, Cisco Intersight 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
    First_Name user.givenname
    Last_Name user.surname
    memberOf user.groups

  8. 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

  9. On the Set up Cisco Intersight section, copy the appropriate URL(s) based on your requirement.

    Copy configuration URLs

Create a Microsoft Entra test user

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

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a User Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Users > All users.
  3. Select New user > Create new user, at the top of the screen.
  4. 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.
  5. Select Create.

Assign the Microsoft Entra test user

In this section, you'll enable B.Simon to use single sign-on by granting access to Cisco Intersight.

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

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

Create Cisco Intersight test user

In this section, you create a user called Britta Simon in Cisco Intersight. Work with Cisco Intersight support team to add the users in the Cisco Intersight 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 Cisco Intersight Sign-on URL where you can initiate the login flow.

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

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

Next steps

Once you configure Cisco Intersight 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.