SAML Single Sign-On into Joomla using SimpleSAML

Overview

miniOrange Joomla SAML SP SSO plugin helps you to integrate your Joomla site to SimpleSAML using SAML 2.0 protocol. Our user-friendly plugin simplifies the process of setting up Single Sign-on (SSO) with SimpleSAML in Joomla, ensuring a secure login experience. This enables users to access various Joomla sites effortlessly using their SimpleSAML IDP credentials.

Our plugin is designed to be compatible with Joomla 3, 4 as well as 5 and works seamlessly with all SAML 2.0 compliant Identity Providers. For a detailed overview of the comprehensive features offered by the Joomla SAML SP plugin, please visit our page here. Below, we provide a step-by-step guide on configuring SAML SSO login between your Joomla site and SimpleSAML, with SimpleSAML serving as the Identity Provider (IDP) and Joomla as the Service Provider (SP).

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Configuration Steps

In this setup, SimpleSAML serves as the repository for storing users i.e. it will act as the IDP while Joomla is where users will log in using their credentials from SimpleSAML where Joomla SAML SP SSO Plugin will be installed.

Step 1: Install Joomla SAML SP Plugin

Login into your Joomla site’s Administrator console.
From left toggle menu, click on System, then under Install section click on Extensions.
Now click on Or Browse for file button to locate and install the plugin file downloaded earlier.

Installation of plugin is successful. Now click on Get Started!

Go to the Service Provider Metadata tab and scroll down to copy the SP-EntityID and the ACS URL.

Step 2: Configure SimpleSAML as IDP (Identity Provider)

Enabling the Identity Provider functionality:

The first that must be done is to enable the identity provider functionality. This is done by editing config/config.php (You can find this file in your simplesaml installation directory). The option enable.saml20-idp controls whether SAML 2.0 IdP support is enabled. Enable it by assigning true to them.
Example: ‘enable.saml20-idp’ => true.

Configuring the authentication module:

The exampleauth: UserPass authentication module is part of the exampleauth module. This module isn't enabled by default, so you will have to enable it. This is done by creating a file named enable (file name) in modules/ exampleauth/.
On unix, this can be done by running (from the SimpleSAMLphp installation directory).
The next step is to create an authentication source with this module. An authentication source is an authentication module with a specific configuration. Each authentication source has a name, which is used to refer to this specific configuration in the IdP configuration. Configuration for authentication sources can be found in config/ authsources.php.
In this setup, this file should contain a single entry:

<?php     $config = [     'example-userpass' => [     'exampleauth: UserPass',     'student: studentpass' => [     'uid' =>

This configuration creates two users - student and employee, with the passwords studentpass and employeepass. The username and password are stored in the array index (student: studentpass for the student-user). The attributes for each user are configured in the array referenced by the index. So for the student user, these are:

[ 'uid' => ['student'], 'eduPersonAffiliation' => ['member', 'student'], ],

The attributes will be returned by the IdP when the user logs on.

Creating a self-signed certificate:

The IdP needs a certificate to sign its SAML assertions with. Here is an example of an openssl-command which can be used to generate a new private key key and the corresponding self-signed certificate. The private key and certificate go into the directory defined in the certdir setting (defaults to cert/) This key and certificate can be used to sign SAML messages:

openssl req -newkey rsa:3072 -new -x509 -days 3652 -nodes -out example.org.crt -keyout example.org.pem

The certificate above will be valid for 10 years. OR You can generate it by using any online Tools and add them in cert directory. The extension should be like:

example.org.crt //(Public Key)    example.org.pem //(Private Key)

Note: SimpleSAMLphp will only work with RSA certificates. DSA certificates are not supported.

Configuring the IdP:

The SAML 2.0 IdP is configured by the metadata stored in metadata/saml20-idp-hosted.php. This is a minimal configuration:

<?php    $metadata['__DYNAMIC:1__'] = [    /*    * The hostname for this IdP. This makes it possible to run multiple    * IdPs fro

Adding SPs to the IdP:

The identity provider you are configuring needs to know about the service providers you are going to connect to it. This is configured by metadata stored in metadata/saml20-sp-remote.php. This is a minimal example of a metadata/saml20-sp-remote.php metadata file for a SimpleSAMLphp SP:
Replace example.com with your Joomla domain name.

<?php        $metadata['https://example.com/plugins/authentication/miniorangesaml/'] = [         'Assertion Consumer Service' =>

Note that the URI in the entityID and the URLs to the Assertion Consumer Service and Single Logout Service endpoints change between different service providers. If you have the metadata of the remote SP as an XML file, you can use the built-in XML to SimpleSAMLphp metadata converter, which by default is available as /admin/metadata-converter.php in your SimpleSAMLphp installation.

Here, you can also add user attributes you want to send from SimpleSAML to your Service Provider i.e Joomla.
Go to SimpleSAMLphp homepage of installation. The URL of an installation can be e.g.:

https://service.example.com/simplesaml/ where service.example.com

Note: The installation page URL may differ depending on how SimpleSAML installation has been done.
Now go to Federation Tab and click on Show Metadata for SAML 2.0 IdP Metadata.

You can get the IdP metadata from here which will be required to configure the plugin.

Step 3: Configure Joomla as SP (Service Provider)

In Joomla SAML plugin, go to Service Provider Setup tab. There are three ways to configure the plugin:

A. By uploading IDP metadata:

In Joomla SAML plugin, go to Service Provider Setup tab, then click on Upload IdP Metadata.

B. By Metadata URL:

Enter Metadata URL (Copy from IDP app) and click on Fetch button.

C. Manual Configuration:

Copy SAML Entity ID, SAML Single-Sign-On Endpoint URL and X.509 certificate from Federation Metadata document and paste it in Idp Entity ID or Issuer, Single Sign-on URL, X.509 Certificate fields respectively in the plugin.

IdP Entity ID or Issuer	SAML Entity ID in the Federation Metadata document
Single Sign-On URL	SAML Single-Sign-On Endpoint URL in the Federation Metadata document
X.509 Certificate Value	X.509 Certificate in the Federation Metadata document

Step 4: Attribute Mapping - Premium Feature

Attributes are user details that are stored in your Identity Provider.
Attribute Mapping helps you to get user attributes from your Identity Provider (IDP) and map them to Joomla user attributes like firstname, lastname, address, phone etc.
While auto registering the users in your Joomla site these attributes will automatically get mapped to your Joomla user details.
Go to Attribute Mapping tab and fill in all the fields.

Username:	Name of the username attribute from IdP (Keep NameID by default)
Email:	Name of the email attribute from IdP (Keep NameID by default)
Name:	Name of the name attribute from IdP

You can check the Test Configuration Results under Service Provider Setup tab to get a better idea of which values to map here.

Note: You can see how Attribute Mapping works here.

Step 5: Group Mapping - Premium Feature

Group/Role mapping helps you to assign specific roles to users of a certain group in your Identity Provider (IdP).
While auto registering, the users are assigned roles based on the group they are mapped to.

Group/Role mapping helps you to assign specific roles to users of a certain group in your Identity Provider (IdP).
While auto registering, the users are assigned roles based on the group they are mapped to.

Note: You can see how Group/Role Mapping works here.

Step 6: Redirection & SSO Links

Go to Login Settings tab. You can add login Url to Perform SAML SSO in your Joomla site by following the steps below.
There are multiple features available in this tab like Auto redirect the user to Identity Provider and Enable Backend Login for Super Users. To use these features, click on the respective checkboxes.

Click on the Upgrade tab to check out our complete list of features and various licensing plans. OR you can click here to check features and licensing plans.
In case, you are facing some issue or have any question in mind, you can reach out to us by sending us your query through the Support button in the plugin or by sending us a mail at joomlasupport@xecurify.com.

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