SAML Single Sign-On into Joomla using SimpleSAML | SimpleSAML SSO | Login using SimpleSAML

What is SSO ?

Single sign-on (SSO) is an authentication method that enables users to access multiple applications with one-click login and one set of credentials. For example, after users log in to your org, they can automatically access all apps from the App Launcher. When you set up SSO, you configure one system to trust another to authenticate users , eliminating users' need to log in to each system separately. The system that authenticates users is called an Identity provider. The system that trusts the identity provider for authentication is called the Service provider.

SAML allows exchanging of information between Service Provider and Identity provider, SAML is integration between SP and IDP. When a user tries to log in, your identity provider sends SAML assertions containing facts about the user to Identity Provider. Identity Provider receives the assertion, validates it against your Identity Provider configuration, and allows the user to access your org.

Joomla SAML SP Single Sign-On plugin gives the ability to enable SAML Single Sign-On for your Joomla sites. Our plugin is compatible with all the SAML compliant Identity providers. Here we will go through a step-by-step guide to configure SSO between Joomla site and SimpleSAMLphp by considering SimpleSAMLphp as IdP.

Follow the steps below to configure SimpleSAML as IdP

Step 1: Setup SimpleSAML as Identity Provider

miniorange img Configure SimpleSAML as IdP

In the miniOrange SAML SP SSO plugin, navigate to Service Provider Metadata tab. Here, you can find the SP metadata such as SP Entity ID and ACS (AssertionConsumerService) URL which are required to configure the Identity Provider

SimpleSAML SSO single-sign-on , SP metadata

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' => ['student'], 'eduPersonAffiliation' => ['member', 'student'], ], 'employee:employeepass' => [ 'uid' => ['employee'], 'eduPersonAffiliation' => ['member', 'employee'], ], ], ];
- 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 from the same configuration. '__DEFAULT__' means that this one * should be used by default. */ 'host' => '__DEFAULT__', /* * The private key and certificate to use when signing responses. * These are stored in the cert-directory. */ 'privatekey' => 'example.org.pem', 'certificate' => 'example.org.crt', /* * The authentication source which should be used to authenticate the * user. This must match one of the entries in config/authsources.php. */ 'auth' => '' Example:- 'example-userpass', // You can find this in Step Number 3 ];
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/'] = [ 'AssertionConsumerService' => 'https://example.com/?morequest=acs', 'SingleLogoutService' => 'https://example.com/index.php?option=com_users&task=logout', 'NameIDFormat' => 'urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:emailAddress', 'simplesaml.nameidattribute' => 'mail', 'simplesaml.attributes' => true, 'attributes' => array('mail', 'givenname', 'sn', 'memberOf'), ];
Note that the URI in the entityID and the URLs to the AssertionConsumerService 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.
- (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.

Configuration of Joomla 3
Configuration of Joomla 4

Configuration of Joomla 3

Step 2: Configuring Joomla as Service Provider (SP)

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

By Metadata URL :

Click on Upload IDP Metadata.

Joomla Single Sign On SSO SAML SP Upload Metadata

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

Joomla Single Sign On SSO SAML SP Upload Metadata URL

By Uploading Metadata File:

Click on Upload IDP Metadata.
Choose metadata file and click on Upload.

Joomla Single Sign On SSO SAML SP Upload Metadata file

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 Service 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 Service URL	SAML Single-Sign-On Endpoint URL in the Federation Metadata document
X.509 Certificate	x.509 Certificate in the Federation Metadata document

Add a button on your site login page with the following URL:

Joomla Single Sign On SSO SAML SP Signin Settings

Step 3: Attribute Mapping (It is Optional to fill this). This is 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 etc.
While auto registering the users in your Joomla site these attributes will automatically get mapped to your Joomla user details.

In Joomla SAML plugin, 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)
Group/Role:	Name of the Role attribute from Identity Provider(IdP)

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

Step 4: Group Mapping (It is Optional to fill this). This is Premium feature.

Joomla uses a concept of Roles, designed to give the site owner the ability to control what users can and cannot do within the site.
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.

Step 5: Redirection & SSO Links.

Go to Login Settings tab. There are multiple features availabe in this tab like Auto redirect the user to Identity Provider and Enable Backed Login for Super Users. To use these features, click on the respective checkboxes.

You have successfully completed your miniOrange SAML 2.0 SP configurations. Still, if you are facing any difficulty please mail us on joomlasupport@xecurify.com .

Configuration of Joomla 4