SAML Single Sign On (SSO) Into Confluence Using Shibboleth3

Confluence SAML app gives the ability to enable SAML Single Sign On for Confluence Software. Confluence Software is compatible with all SAML Identity Providers. Here we will go through a guide to configure SSO between Confluence and Shibboleth3. By the end of this guide, Shibboleth3 users should be able to login and register to Confluence Software.

Pre-requisites

To configure Shibboleth 3 integration with Confluence SAML SSO, you need the following items:

Confluence should be installed and configured.
Admin credentials are set up in Confluence.
Valid Confluence Server and Data center Licence.

Download And Installation

Log into your Confluence instance as an admin.
Navigate to the settings menu and Click Manage Apps.
Click Find new apps or Find new add-ons from the left-hand side of the page.
Locate Confluence SAML Single Sign On (SSO),Confluence SSO via search.
Click Try free to begin a new trial or Buy now to purchase a license for Confluence SAML Single Sign On (SSO), Confluence SSO.
Enter your information and click Generate license when redirected to MyAtlassian.
Click Apply license.

Step 1: Setup Shibboleth3 as Identity Provider

In conf/idp.properties, uncomment and set 'idp.encryption.optional' to true.
eg. idp.encryption.optional = true
In conf/metadata-providers.xml, configure Service Provider like below.


<MetadataProvider xmlns:samlmd="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:metadata" 

  id="miniOrangeInLineEntity" xsi:type="InlineMetadataProvider" sortKey="1"> 

  <samlmd:EntityDescriptor ID="entity" entityID="<SP-EntityID / Issuer from Service Provider Info tab in plugin.>" 

    validUntil="2020-09-06T04:13:32Z"> 

    <samlmd:SPSSODescriptor AuthnRequestsSigned="false" WantAssertionsSigned="true" 

    protocolSupportEnumeration="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:protocol"> 

      <samlmd:NameIDFormat> 

        urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:emailAddress 

      </samlmd:NameIDFormat> 

    <samlmd:AssertionConsumerService Binding="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-POST" 

    Location="<ACS (AssertionConsumerService) URL from Step1 of the plugin under Identity Provider Tab.>" 

      index="1" /> 

    </samlmd:SPSSODescriptor> 

    </samlmd:EntityDescriptor> 

</MetadataProvider>

In conf/saml-nameid.properties, uncomment and set default NameID as Email Address like this


idp.nameid.saml2.default=urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:emailAddress

In conf/saml-nameid-xml, search for shibboleth.SAML2NameIDGenerators. Uncomment the shibboleth.SAML2AttributeSourcedGenerator bean and comment all other ref beans.


<!-- SAML 2 NameID Generation --> 

<util:list id="shibboleth.SAML2NameIDGenerators">  

  <!--<ref bean="shibboleth.SAML2TransientGenerator" /> --> 
 
  <!-->ref bean="shibboleth.SAML2PersistentGenerator" /> -->  

  <bean parent="shibboleth.SAML2AttributeSourcedGenerator"    

  p:format="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:emailAddress"  

  p:attributeSourceIds="#{ {'email'} }" /> 

</util:list>

Make sure you have defined AttributeDefinition in conf/attribute-resolver.xml.


<!-- Note: AttributeDefinitionid must be same as what you provided in attributeSourceIds in conf/saml-nameid.xml --> 

<resolver:AttributeDefinitionxsi:type="ad:Simple" id="email" sourceAttributeID="mail"> 

  <resolver:Dependency ref="ldapConnector" /> 

  <resolver:AttributeEncoderxsi:type="enc:SAML2String" name="email"  friendlyName="email" /> 

</resolver:AttributeDefinition > 



<resolver:DataConnector id="ldapConnector" xsi:type="dc:LDAPDirectory" ldapURL="%{idp.authn.LDAP.ldapURL}" 

  baseDN="%{idp.authn.LDAP.baseDN}" principal="%{idp.authn.LDAP.bindDN}" 

  principalCredential="%{idp.authn.LDAP.bindDNCredential}">  


  <dc:FilterTemplate> 

    <!-- Define you User Search Filter here -->  
 
    <![CDATA[   (&(objectclass=*)(cn=$requestContext.principalName))   ]]> 

  </dc:FilterTemplate> 
 


  <dc:ReturnAttributes>*</dc:ReturnAttributes> 

</resolver:DataConnector>

Make sure you have AttributeFilterPolicy defined in conf/attribute-filter.xml.


<afp:AttributeFilterPolicy id="ldapAttributes"> 

<afp:PolicyRequirementRulexsi:type="basic:ANY"/> 

  <afp:AttributeRuleattributeID="email"> 

    <afp:PermitValueRulexsi:type="basic:ANY"/> 

  </afp:AttributeRule> 

</afp:AttributeFilterPolicy>

Restart the Shibboleth server.
You need to configure these endpoints in the miniOrange SAML plugin.

IDP Entity ID	https://<your_domain>/idp/shibboleth
Single Login URL	https://<your_domain>/idp/profile/SAML2/Redirect/SSO
Single Logout URL	https://<your_domain>/idp/shibboleth
X.509 Certificate	The public key certificate of your Shibboleth server

Step 2: Setup Confluence as Service Provider

Now we will go through the steps to setup Confluence as a Service Provider using miniOrange add-on:

Configure Single Identity Provider (IdPs)
Configure Multiple Identity Providers (IdPs)

Configure Single Identity Provider (IdPs)

Configure Identity Provider

Step 1. Adding IDP settings in add-on

With the information you have been given by your IDP, you can configure IdP settings in 3 ways.

By Metadata URL
By uploading Metadata XML file
Manual Configuration

miniorange img By Metadata URL:

Click on Import from Metadata in Configure IDP tab.
Select IDP: Import From Metadata URL.
Enter your metadata URL.
If your IDP changes certificates at intervals(Eg. Azure AD), you can select Refresh metadata periodically. Select 5 minutes for the best results.
Click Import.

By uploading Metadata XML file:

Click on Import from Metadata in Configure IDP tab.

Select IDP: Import from Metadata File.

Upload metadata file.

Click Import.

Manual Configuration:

Go to Configure IDP tab and enter the following details.

IDP Name

IDP Entity ID

Single Sign On URL

Single Logout URL

X.509 Certificate

Configure Multiple Identity Providers (IdPs)

Configure Multiple Identity Providers

Step 1: Add New IdP

Click on Add New IdP button given in the right topmost corner. You can configure IdP using one of these 3 methods.

Step 2: List of IdPs

Once the IdP endpoints are configured successfully, you will get to see list of all the IdPs.

You can edit Metadata endpoints using Edit option.

Click on Test to check your IdP response. It shows Test successful with set of attributes you configured in your IdP. You can perform Single Sign-On once the test is successful.

You can remove IdP from the list using Delete option.

Step 3: Single Sign On

Select your IdP from the list. It will redirect you to selected IdP login page.

Step 4 : Domain Mapping

Enable Domain mapping using Use Domain Mapping option.

Enter IdP domain name.
Note: For this feature you have to configure domain name for each and every IDP from the list.

Step 5: Single Sign On using Domain mapping

Enter user email address. It will check your domain name with the configured domain if it match then it will redirect you to the respective Identity Provider Login page.

Step 3: Setting up Confluence user profile attributes

We will be setting up user profile attributes for Confluence. If your users are stored in a directory that is Read Only, please check Disable User Profile Mapping in User Profile tab and follow steps given in Matching a User.

a. Finding correct attributes

Go to Configure IDP tab. Scroll down and click on Test Configuration.

You will see all the values returned by your IDP to Confluence in a table. If you don’t see value for First Name, Last Name, Email or Username, make the required settings in your IDP to return this information.

Once you see all the values in Test Configuration, keep the window open and go to User Profile tab.

b. Setting profile attributes

In this tab, fill the values by matching the name of the attribute. For instance, if the Attribute Name in the Test Configuration window is NameID, enter NameID against Username

Setting up both Username and Email is required if you want to let users register. If you want existing users to only login, configure the attribute using which you will match user in Confluence.

c. Matching a User

When user logs into Confluence, one of the user’s data/attribute coming in from the IDP is used to search the user in Confluence. This is used to detect the user in Confluence and login the user to the same account.

Go to User Profile tab

Select Username or Email for Login/Search Confluence user account by

Enter the attribute name from IDP which corresponds to Username or Email using Finding Correct Attributes

Step 4: Assigning groups to users

We will be setting up user group attributes for Confluence. If your users are stored in a directory that is Read Only, please check Disable Group Mapping in User Groups tab and skip to Setting default group.

a. Setting default group

Select the users' Default Group in the tab User Groups. If no group is mapped, users are added by default to this group.

You can enable default groups for All Users or New Users using the option.Select None if you don't want to assign any default group to SSO users. Using the option Enable Default Groups for.

b. Finding Group Attribute

Just like we found Attribute Name for User Profile attributes, we find group attribute.

Go to Configure IDP tab. Scroll down and click on Test Configuration.

You will see all the values returned by your IDP to Confluence in a table. If you don't see value with groups, make the required settings in your IDP to return group names.

Once you see all the values in Test Configuration, keep the window open and go to User Groups tab.

Enter the Attribute Name of group against Group Attribute.

Check Disable Group Mapping option if you don't want to update groups of existing users.

c. Group Mapping
Group Mapping can be done in two ways:
Manual group mapping: If the names of groups in Confluence are different than the corresponding groups in IDP, then you should use Manual group mapping.

On-The-Fly group mapping: If the names of groups in Confluence and IDP are same, you should use On-The-Fly group mapping.

I. Manual Group Mapping

Check Restrict User Creation Based on Group Mapping option if you want new users to be created only if at least one of the user's IDP groups is mapped to a group in the application.

For mapping, first select a Confluence group from the dropdown which lists all groups present in Confluence and then enter the name of the IDP group to be mapped in the textbox beside

For example, if you want all users in 'dev' group in IDP to be added to confluence-users, you will need to select confluence-users from the dropdown and enter 'dev' against confluence-users.

Use '+1' and '+10' buttons to add extra mapping fields.

Use '-' button next to each mapping to delete that mapping.

II. On-The Fly Group Mapping

Check Create New Groups option if you want new groups from IDP to be created if not found in Confluence.

If the user is part of some group in Confluence and that group is not present in the SAML response returned by IDP, then the user will be removed from that group in Confluence.

If you don't want On-The-Fly group mapping to affect Confluence groups which are managed locally then add those groups in Exclude Groups field.

Step 5: SSO Settings

The settings in Sign In Settings tab define the user experience for Single Sign On
a. Sign In Settings

Set button text for button on login page using Login Button Text

Set redirect URL after login using Relay State. Keep this empty for coming back to the same page user started from

Enable Auto-redirect to IDP if you want to allow users to login only using IDP. Enable backdoor for emergency

b. Custom Login Template

Set custom login template to redirect users to a custom login page instead of Confluence default login page. This won't work if you have Auto-redirect to IDP enabled.

Don't forget to copy default login page URL in case of emergency.

c. Sign Out Settings

Enter a custom logout URL to redirect your users to a pre-defined logout page

Set a custom logout template to show custom logout page to users on logout

d. SSO Error Settings

Set error template to redirect users to a custom error page instead of login page. Use this if you have Auto-redirect to IDP enabled.

e. Advanced Settings

Remember Me: If enabled, user stays logged in until user explicitly logs out.

You can extend Confluence default session timeout using these steps. By default it is set to 60 mins.

Validate IDP's SAML Response: Configure time difference(in minute) here In case Confluence server time is not in sync with your IDP's time.

Additional Resources

What is SAML?

SAML Identity Providers

Attribute Mappings

Group Mappings

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Contents

Pre-requisites

Download And Installation

Step 1: Setup Shibboleth3 as IdP

Step 2: Setup Confluence as SP

Step 3: User Profile

Step 4: User Groups

Step 5: SSO Settings

Additional Resources