SAML Single Sign On (SSO) Into Crowd Using Shibboleth2

Pre-requisites

To configure Bulk User Management for Crowd, you need the following items:

To configure your Identity Provider integration with Crowd SAML SSO, you need the following items:

Crowd should be installed and configured.
Admin credentials are set up in Crowd.

Pre-configurations to make SSO work

Navigate to Applications->Crowd->Directory and Group and make sure user is allowed to authenticate (This is not needed in the premium plugin).
Navigate to Application->Crowd->Remote address and make sure Crowd server's IP Address is configured here.
If you are using Crowd Server/Datacenter version 4.3.0 and above, please navigate to Applications->Crowd->Options. Select Allow to generate user tokens option and Save it.

Download and Installation

Free

Premium

Log into your Crowd instance as an admin.
Navigate to the Administration menu and Click Manage Apps.
Click Find new apps or Find new add-ons from the left-hand side of the page.
Locate SAML Single Sign-On for Crowd via search and click on install.

SAML Single Sign On (SSO) into Crowd, Install Crowd Add-On through manage apps menu

A. License and Plugin Download

Login to miniOrange Admin console.
Navigate to License > Manage License > Release and Download .
Download the jar file from the Download link.
Now, click on the View License button to get the license key.

B. Installation

Log in to the Crowd Admin console.
Navigate to Administration > Manage Apps.
Click on the Upload App and upload the jar file.
Now, click on the Configure button. You will be asked to verify the miniOrange credential and license key.

Plugin Activation

C.a Plugin Activation with Online License

Navigate to Crowd Admin Console → Manage Apps.
Click on the Configure button of the miniOrange Crowd SAML SSO plugin.
Log in with your miniOrange account. Once authenticated, you will be prompted to enter the license key.
Enter the license key and click on the verify button.

C.b Plugin Activation with Offline License

You will be provided license for activation.
Navigate to Crowd Admin Console → Manage Apps.
Click on the Configure button of the miniOrange Crowd SAML SSO plugin.
Click on Choose File button under the Upload your license File here section.
Upload the license key and click on the Verify button.

Step 1: Set Up Shibboleth2 as Identity Provider

In conf/relying-party.xml, configure Service Provider like this


<MetadataProviderxsi:type="InlineMetadataProvider" xmlns="urn:mace:shibboleth:2.0:metadata" id="MyInlineMetadata"> 

  <EntitiesDescriptorxmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:metadata"> 

    <md:EntityDescriptorxmlns:md="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:metadata" entityID="<ENTITY_ID_FROM_PLUGIN>"> 

      <md:SPSSODescriptorAuthnRequestsSigned="false" WantAssertionsSigned="true" protocolSupportEnumeration= 

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

        <urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameidformat:emailAddress</md:NameIDFormat> 

        <md:AssertionConsumerService Binding="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:https-POST" 

          Location="<ACS_URL_FROM_PLUGIN>" index="1"/> 

      </md:SPSSODescriptor> 

    </md:EntityDescriptor> 

  </EntitiesDescriptor> 

</MetadataProvider>

Make sure your Shibboleth server is sending Email Address of the user in Name ID. In attribute-resolver.xml, get the email attribute as Name ID:


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

   <resolver:Dependency ref="ldapConnector" /> 

   <resolver:AttributeEncoderxsi:type="enc:SAML2StringNameID" nameFormat="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1: 

    nameid-format:emailAddress"/> 

</resolver:AttributeDefinition>

In attribute-filter.xml, release the email attribute:


<afp:AttributeFilterPolicy id="releaseTransientIdToAnyone"> 

<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 miniOrange plugin.

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

Step 2: Set Up Crowd as Service Provider

Configuring Single IDP

With the information you have been given by Your IDP team, you can configure IDP settings in 2 ways:

By Metadata URL
Manual Configuration

A. By Metadata URL

Click on Import from Metadata in Configure IDP tab
Give IDP Name that you want to.
Enter IDP metadata URL: Enter your metadata URL
Click Import

SAML Single Sign On (SSO) into Crowd, Import IDP through Metadata URL

B. Manual Configuration

Go to Configure IDP tab and enter the following details

IDP Entity ID
Single Sign On URL
Single Logout URL
X.509 Certificate

SAML Single Sign ON (SSO) into Crowd, Configure IDP Manually

Configure New IDP

If you already have one IDP & you are looking to add Second IDP then you can do it by performing the following steps.

Navigate to Configure IDP tab.
Click on Add new IDP.
It will present a blank form & you can configure new IDP using steps from Single IdP Setup.

SAML Single Sign On (SSO) into Crowd, Add second IDP into Crowd

Configure multiple IDPs

If you have configured more than two IDPs then it will show you the list of IDP that you have configured with Crowd.

Click on Add new IdP button for adding new IDP on Crowd. The steps for adding new IDP will remain the same.

SAML Single Sign On (SSO) into Crowd, Add multiple IDP into Crowd

An operation that you can perform with List of IdPs page.

Add / delete Identity Provider.
Test Connection between Crowd & IdP by click on Test button for respective IDP.
Edit the IdP configuration by clicking on the Edit button.
You can allow an only specific set of users to access Crowd by using Domain Mapping.

Single Sign-On with Multiple Identity Provider(IDP)

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

SAML Single Sign On (SSO) into Crowd, login buttons on login page for multiple IDP

Step 3: Setting up Crowd user profile attributes

We will be setting up user profile attributes for Crowd. If your users are stored in a directory that is Read Only, please check Disable Attribute 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 Crowd 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 the user in Crowd.

c. Matching a User

When the user logs into Crowd, one of the user's data/attribute coming in from the IDP is used to search the user in Crowd. This is used to detect the user in Crowd and log in the user to the same account.
You can configure it using steps given below:

Go to User Profile tab
Select Username or Email for Login/Search Crowd 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 Crowd. 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.

SAML Single Sign On (SSO) into Crowd, Default groups in group mapping

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 Crowd 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 following way:

Manual group mapping: If the names of groups in Crowd are different than the corresponding groups in IDP, you should use 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 Crowd group from the dropdown which lists all groups present in Crowd 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 app-user, you will need to select app-user from the dropdown and enter 'dev' against app-user.
Use '+1' and '+10' buttons to add extra mapping fields.
Use '-' button next to each mapping to delete that mapping.

SAML Single Sign On (SSO) into Crowd, Manual group mapping

Step 5: SSO Settings

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

Go to SSO Login Template. Design your own login template that will be used to initiate SSO.

SAML Single Sign On (SSO) into Crowd, Custom login Settings

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

Step 6: Crowd Connectors

The Crowd SSO connector expands the SAML SSO functionality from Crowd to its connected Atlassian applications where it allows users to login to their applications such as Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket, Bamboo, Fisheye while maintaining the users in Crowd.

Note: Click on the icons to view the SSO Connector guide for the application.

Jira

Bamboo

Confluence

Fisheye

Bitbucket

Crowd Troubleshooting

If you encounter any difficulties while setting up miniOrange Crowd add-ons, please refer to this Crowd troubleshooting page for assistance.