ASP.NET SAML Single Sign-On (SSO) Using Salesforce As IDP

ASP.NET SAML Single Sign-On (SSO) module gives the ability to enable SAML Single Sign-On for your ASP.NET applications. Using Single Sign-On you can use only one password to access your ASP.NET application and services. Our module is compatible with all the SAML compliant identity providers. Here we will go through a step-by-step guide to configure Single Sign-On (SSO) between ASP.NET and Salesforce considering Salesforce as IdP. To know more about the other features we provide, click here.

Pre-requisites: Download And Installation

• After integration, open your browser and browse the connector dashboard with the URL below:
  https://<your-application-base-url>/?ssoaction=config
• If the registration page or login page pops up, you have successfully added the miniOrange SAML SSO connector to your application.

• Register or log in with your account by clicking the Register button to configure the module.

Steps to configure ASP.NET Single Sign-On (SSO) using Salesforce as IDP

1. Configure Salesforce as identity provider

• You need to send your SP metadata to identity provider, Salesforce. For SP metadata, use the SP metadata URL or download the SP metadata as a .xml file and upload it at your IdP end. You can find both these options under the Service Provider Settings tab.
• There are two ways detailed below with which you can get the SAML SP metadata to configure onto your identity provider end.

A] Using SAML metadata URL or metadata file:

• Under Service Provider Settings you can find the metadata URL as well as the option to download the SAML metadata.
• Copy metadata URL or download the metadata file to configure the same on your identity provider end.
• You may refer to the screenshot below:


B] Uploading metadata manually:

• From the Service Provider Settings section, you can manually copy the service provider metadata like SP Entity ID, ACS URL, Single Logout URL and share it with your identity provider for configuration.
• You may refer to the screenshot below:

• Log into your Salesforce account as admin.
• Switch to Salesforce Lightning mode from profile menu and then go to the Setup page by clicking on setup button.

• From the left pane, select Settings Tab and click on Identity Provider.

• Click on Enable Identity Provider.

• In the Service Provider section, click on the link to create the Service Provider using Connected Apps.

• Enter Connected App Name, API Name and Contact Email.

Connected App Name	Provide a name for Connected App
API Name	Provide a API name
Contact Email	Provide a Contact Email


• Under the Web App Settings, check the Enable SAML checkbox and enter the following values:

Enable SAML	Checked
Entity ID	SP-EntityID / Issuer from Service Provider Metadata tab of the Plugin
ACS URL	ACS (AssertionConsumerService) URL from Service Provider Metadata tab of the Plugin
Subject Type	Username
Name ID Format	urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:unspecified


• Click on Save to save the configuration.
• Now from the left pane, under Platform Tools section select Connected Apps.
• Then select Manage Connected Apps and click on the app you just created.

• In the Profiles section click Manage Profiles button.
• Assign the Profiles you want to give access to log in through this app.

• Under SAML Login Information, click on Download Metadata.

• Keep this metadata handy for configuring the Service Provider.

2. Configure ASP.NET application as service provider

Note: After installation of the plugin, we need to setup the trust between your ASP.NET application and your Salesforce account. SAML metadata is shared with Salesforce so they can update their inbuilt configuration to support Single Sign-On.

Import Salesforce SAML metadata

• Select Salesforce from the list of identity providers shown below.

• There are two methods for configuring ASP.NET as service provider:

A] Upload metadata using the Upload IDP Metadata button:

• If your identity provider has provided you with the metadata URL or metadata file (.xml format only), then you can simply configure the identity provider metadata in the module using the Upload IDP Metadata option.
• You may refer to the screenshot below:

• You can choose any one of the options according to the metadata format you have available.

B] Configure the identity provider metadata manually:

• After configuring your Identity Provider, it will provide you with IDP Entity ID, IDP Single Sign On URL and SAML X509 Certificate fields respectively.
• Click Save to save your IDP details.

3. Testing SAML SSO

• Click on the Test Configuration button to test whether the SAML Configuration you’ve done is correct.
• The screenshot below shows a successful result. Click on SSO Integration where you will be redirected to Attribute Mapping section.

• If you are experiencing any error on the module end you’ll be shown with the window similar to below.

• To troubleshoot the error you can follow the below steps:
• Under Troubleshoot tab, enable the toggle to receive the plugin logs.


• Once enabled, you will be able to retrieve plugin logs by navigating to Identity Provider Settings tab and clicking on Test Configuration.
• Download the log file from the Troubleshoot tab to see what went wrong.
• You can share the log file with us at aspnetsupport@xecurify.com and our team will reach out to you to resolve your issue.

4. Integration Code

• You can find the Integration code in the Login Settings tab in the module. Just copy-paste that code snippet wherever you want to access the user attributes.
• Note: All the mapped attributes will be stored in the session so that you can access them in your application.

• If you want some assistance regarding the integration code, get in touch with us aspnetsupport@xecurify.com

5. Login Settings

• Use the following URL as a link in your application from where you want to perform SSO:
https://<your-application-base-url>/?ssoaction=login
• For example you can use it as:
<a href="https://<your-application-base-url>/?ssoaction=login">Login</a>

6. Logout Settings

• Use the following URL as a link in your application from where you want to perform SLO:
https://<your-application-base-url>/?ssoaction=logout
• For example you can use it as:
<a href="https://<your-application-base-url>/?ssoaction=logout">Logout</a>

You can even configure the DNN SAML Single Sign-On (SSO) module with any identity provider such as ADFS, Azure AD, Bitium, Centrify, G Suite, JBoss Keycloak, Okta, OneLogin, Salesforce, AWS Cognito, OpenAM, Oracle, PingFederate, PingOne, RSA SecureID, Shibboleth-2, Shibboleth-3, SimpleSAML, WSO2 or even with your own custom identity provider. To check other identity providers, click here.

Additional Resources

• ASP.NET OAuth Single Sign-On (SSO)
• Web3 login for ASP.NET Applications
• DNN SAML Single Sign-On (SSO)
• DNN REST API Authentication
• nopCommerce SAML Single Sign-On (SSO)
• nopCommerce OAuth Single Sign-On (SSO)
• Umbraco SAML Single Sign-On (SSO)