One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Sessions 7.4 - Administration Guide

The topics below discuss how to authenticate users with SAML2.

During SAML2 login, the Service Provider (SP) makes the authorization decision about a subject (user) based on an assertion, which is created by an Identity Provider (IdP). To make this decision, the SP must trust the IdP and the IdP must provide enough information about the user to make this authorization decision.

When you configure SAML2 login in One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Sessions, SPS serves as the SP. The SAML2 authentication flow consists of several HTTP redirects, where the information exchange between the SP and the IdP is performed using the user's browser. This means that there is no direct network communication between SPS and the IdP.

The process of the SAML2 authentication flow is the following:

1. The user goes to the SPS login page and clicks on the login button associated with your SAML2 login method, see Authenticating users with SAML2 login method for the details.
2. SPS redirects the user to the login page of the IdP. The redirect contains the SAML2 authentication request.
3. The IdP authenticates the user. This step is entirely within the domain of the IdP. It may require a password and/or a second factor, or, if the user has an active session at a different application, the authentication may be performed without any user interaction, providing a single sign-on experience.
4. The IdP redirects the user back to SPS. This redirect conveys the SAML2 response, which contains information about the user.
5. SPS processes the response and based on the information within, it maps the user either to a local or to an AD/LDAP user entry. If the IdP provides the user's groups in the response, then SPS evaluates the permissions assigned to the groups given by the IdP. Otherwise, the permissions are evaluated based on the groups in which the mapped local or AD/LDAP user entry is a member.

SAML 2.0 is a complex standard, and it requires that both the Identity Provider (IdP) and the Service Provider (SP) are configured in a way to interoperate correctly. This section is provided to help you integrate SPS with your IdP.

To authenticate users securely, SPS needs to know many technical details about the Identity Provider (IdP). The standard way of representing this information is SAML metadata, which is an XML file. You must obtain this file from your IdP and upload it to SPS.

The XML file must contain a single IdP entity. If you want to allow logins to SPS from multiple IdPs, you must create additional login methods with different metadata files, see Authenticating users with SAML2 login method. Optionally, the IdP entity element can be wrapped into an EntitiesDescriptor element.