User's Guide: Single Sign-On

Fortanix Data Security Manager (DSM) accounts can be integrated with third-party Single Sign-On (SSO) providers. When an account is configured for SSO, users for that account will be able to login with their SSO credentials. Currently, the following SSO mechanisms are available: SAML and OpenID Connect / OAuth. To set up SSO for your account, log in as administrator and go to the Authentication tab on the Account Settings page and select Single Sign-On, then add the desired SSO mechanism and provide required configuration values.

Configuring a SAML Provider

To enable SAML for your account, first, obtain the Identity Provider (IdP) metadata XML file. Then upload or paste the SAML IdP metadata in Fortanix DSM settings. The IdP must meet the requirements set forth below. The SSO configuration page will inform you if the provided IdP metadata is compatible. For more information refer to Authentication using SAML.

SAML Identity Provider Registration

When configuring Fortanix DSM as a Service Provider with your IdP, provide the following information:

• Entity ID: https://sdkms.fortanix.com/saml/metadata.xml
• POST binding URL: https://sdkms.fortanix.com/saml

SAML Identity Provider Requirements

In order to use a SAML IdP with Fortanix DSM, the IdP must:

• Adhere to SAML 2.0, Web Browser SSO profile
• Use one or more signing keys specified as an X.509 certificate
• Use the urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:emailAddress name format
• Accept the POST binding for requests
• Not require signed requests
• Use the POST binding for response
• Sign responses, assertions, or both

Configuring an OpenID Connect / OAuth provider

To enable SSO using OpenID Connect / OAuth for your account, first obtain the following information from your Identity Provider (IdP):

• Client ID
• Client Secret

You would need to register Fortanix DSM with your IdP to obtain these credentials. Provide the following values to your IdP:

• Application type: web application
• Redirect URL: https://sdkms.fortanix.com/oauth

The IdP must meet the requirements set forth below. To configure the IdP parameters in Fortanix DSM, the following information is required:

• Provider name
• Logo URL (optional)
• Authorization endpoint URL
• Token endpoint URL
• Token endpoint authentication method (client_secret_basic or client_secret_form)
• UserInfo endpoint URL (optional)
• TLS configuration: use Global Root CAs or provide a custom CA certificate

Most of these parameters are published in a well-known location by identity providers. For example:

• Google
• Microsoft

OpenID Connect / OAuth Identity Provider Requirements

In order to use an OpenID Connect / OAuth IdP with Fortanix DSM, the IdP must:

• Support Authorization Code Flow described in OpenID Connect Core specification
• Support email scope
• Provide user’s email address to Fortanix DSM in Token or UserInfo response
• Provide non-encrypted ID token during Token response

LDAP Authentication

Fortanix DSM can be configured to authenticate users through an LDAP-compliant directory. Fortanix DSM supports ldaps and ldap schemes. In both cases, the communication with the directory server is encrypted with TLS. When using the ldap scheme, the StartTLS operation is initiated immediately after connecting to the server.

LDAP authentication is performed in two steps:

• Resolve user’s email address to a Distinguished Name (DN)
• Authenticate to the directory using the DN and user-supplied password

DN Resolution Methods

To resolve the user’s email address to a DN, Fortanix DSM can be configured to use one of the following methods.

Search the Directory

Fortanix DSM can search the directory to find the user object that matches the user’s email address. The search is performed in a subtree and uses the following filter: (&(objectClass={0})(mail={1})) where {0} is the configured object class (e.g. User or inetOrgPerson) and {1} is the user’s email address. Some directories do not allow anonymous search, in which case a service account for Fortanix DSM should be created in the directory. When configured this way, the mailattribute must be set for user objects in the directory.

Construct the DN from an Email Address

Given an email address of the form name@domain, Fortanix DSM can be configured to look up a format string based on the domain part and insert the name part in the format string to construct the DN. For example, if example.com is configured with the format string uid={},ou=users,dc=example,dc=com, then the email address test@example.com will be mapped to the following DN: uid=test,ou=users,dc=example,dc=com. The format string must include the placeholder {} which is replaced by the name part.

UPN Login

With Active Directory, Fortanix DSM can use the email address in place of the DN. When specifying an email address in place of the DN, Active Directory would check the value against the userPrincipalName attribute. iI that attribute is not set, then Active Directory would accept values that match SamAccountName @ domain, where SamAccountName is the legacy user identifier attribute and domain is the fully qualified domain name of the Active Directory domain controller. We recommend setting the userPrincipalName attribute for all users in the directory when configuring Fortanix DSM with the UPN login method.

LDAP Authorization

In addition to authentication, Fortanix DSM can leverage group membership in an LDAP-compliant directory to dynamically assign users to groups. This requires mapping LDAP groups to Fortanix DSM groups. This is achieved by defining external roles in Fortanix DSM and mapping these external roles to Fortanix DSM groups. After a user authenticates to Fortanix DSM using LDAP, Fortanix DSM retrieves the list of directory groups that the user belongs to. If the retrieved groups map to Fortanix DSM groups, the user is added to Fortanix DSM groups for the current session.

Defining External Roles 

Account administrators can create external roles for the account. To do that, they must have added one or more LDAP integrations in account authentication settings. Using the LDAP search functionality, account administrators can look for group objects in an LDAP directory and import those as external roles into Fortanix DSM. After importing the LDAP groups to Fortanix DSM, Group Administrators can map the external roles to that group by specifying the desired access level.

For example, if an Active Directory group identified by the distinguished name CN=My Group,CN=Users,DC=example,DC=com is added as an external role, an administrator of a group Example can map that external role to Example with access level Group Auditor When a user that belongs to this Active Directory group authenticates to Fortanix DSM through LDAP, the user's session will have auditor access to the Example group.

Authorization Settings

When enabling LDAP authorization, the Account Administrator can specify how long an authorization is valid for. When an authorization expires, Fortanix DSM will query the LDAP directory for the user's current group memberships and update the user's session accordingly.

It is also possible to specify a required role for all users and apps of the account authenticating through LDAP. The required roles supported are Account Administrator, Account Auditor, Account Member, Regular Apps, and Administrative Apps. If a user or app is not a member of this directory group and does not have the corresponding LDAP role, Fortanix DSM will prevent that user from selecting the account.

When authorization is enabled for an LDAP integration, the following settings are required:

- Base DN
- User Object Class

The Service Account setting is also needed if the directory does not allow an anonymous search. Note that these settings are also applicable when DN resolution is set to Search by Mail.

Additional Requirements

In order to use the LDAP authorization mechanism, the LDAP directory must support identifying objects with unique ids with one of the following attributes:

- entryUUID defined in RFC 4530, supported by Open LDAP and others
- objectGUID used by Active Directory

When comparing an external role against a user's LDAP groups, Fortanix DSM uses the group's unique id instead of its distinguished name. Unique ids are more flexible compared to DNs since changing object attributes does not affect its unique id, but may change its DN. For example, the group name is usually included in the DN.

LDAP Identity Provider Requirements

The identity provider must:

• Conform to LDAPv3 protocol specified in RFC 4511 and other related RFCs
• Either support ldaps scheme or, if using the ldap scheme, the server must support the StartTLS extended operation

Multiple accounts

Different accounts might have different SSO providers. As such, a user can be in multiple accounts with different SSO providers. Such a user will need to select which SSO provider to use during the login process. When switching accounts, a user might need to re-authenticate to satisfy the new account’s authentication requirements.