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Tutorial: Microsoft Entra single sign-on (SSO) integration with PerimeterX

  • Article

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to integrate PerimeterX with Microsoft Entra ID. When you integrate PerimeterX with Microsoft Entra ID, you can:

  • Control in Microsoft Entra ID who has access to PerimeterX.
  • Enable your users to be automatically signed-in to PerimeterX with their Microsoft Entra accounts.
  • Manage your accounts in one central location.

Prerequisites

To get started, you need the following items:

  • A Microsoft Entra subscription. If you don't have a subscription, you can get a free account.
  • PerimeterX single sign-on (SSO) enabled subscription.

Scenario description

In this tutorial, you configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO in a test environment.

  • PerimeterX supports IDP initiated SSO

To configure the integration of PerimeterX into Microsoft Entra ID, you need to add PerimeterX from the gallery to your list of managed SaaS apps.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > New application.
  3. In the Add from the gallery section, type PerimeterX in the search box.
  4. Select PerimeterX from results panel and then add the app. Wait a few seconds while the app is added to your tenant.

Alternatively, you can also use the Enterprise App Configuration Wizard. In this wizard, you can add an application to your tenant, add users/groups to the app, assign roles, as well as walk through the SSO configuration as well. Learn more about Microsoft 365 wizards.

Configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO for PerimeterX

Configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with PerimeterX using a test user called B.Simon. For SSO to work, you need to establish a link relationship between a Microsoft Entra user and the related user in PerimeterX.

To configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with PerimeterX, perform the following steps:

  1. Configure Microsoft Entra SSO - to enable your users to use this feature.
    1. Create a Microsoft Entra test user - to test Microsoft Entra single sign-on with B.Simon.
    2. Assign the Microsoft Entra test user - to enable B.Simon to use Microsoft Entra single sign-on.
  2. Configure PerimeterX SSO - to configure the single sign-on settings on application side.
    1. Create PerimeterX test user - to have a counterpart of B.Simon in PerimeterX that is linked to the Microsoft Entra representation of user.
  3. Test SSO - to verify whether the configuration works.

Configure Microsoft Entra SSO

Follow these steps to enable Microsoft Entra SSO.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.

  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > PerimeterX > Single sign-on.

  3. On the Select a single sign-on method page, select SAML.

  4. On the Set up single sign-on with SAML page, click the edit/pen icon for Basic SAML Configuration to edit the settings.

    Edit Basic SAML Configuration

  5. On the Basic SAML Configuration section, the application is pre-configured and the necessary URLs are already pre-populated with Azure. The user needs to save the configuration by clicking the Save button.

  6. PerimeterX application expects the SAML assertions in a specific format, which requires you to add custom attribute mappings to your SAML token attributes configuration. The following screenshot shows the list of default attributes.

    image

  7. In addition to above, PerimeterX application expects few more attributes to be passed back in SAML response which are shown below. These attributes are also pre populated but you can review them as per your requirements.

    Name Source Attribute
    firstName user.givenname
    lastName user.surname

  8. On the Set up single sign-on with SAML page, in the SAML Signing Certificate section, find Certificate (Base64) and select Download to download the certificate and save it on your computer.

    The Certificate download link

  9. On the Set up PerimeterX section, copy the appropriate URL(s) based on your requirement.

    Copy configuration URLs

Create a Microsoft Entra test user

In this section, you'll create a test user called B.Simon.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a User Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Users > All users.
  3. Select New user > Create new user, at the top of the screen.
  4. In the User properties, follow these steps:
    1. In the Display name field, enter B.Simon.
    2. In the User principal name field, enter the username@companydomain.extension. For example, B.Simon@contoso.com.
    3. Select the Show password check box, and then write down the value that's displayed in the Password box.
    4. Select Review + create.
  5. Select Create.

Assign the Microsoft Entra test user

In this section, you'll enable B.Simon to use single sign-on by granting access to PerimeterX.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > PerimeterX.
  3. In the app's overview page, select Users and groups.
  4. Select Add user/group, then select Users and groups in the Add Assignment dialog.
    1. In the Users and groups dialog, select B.Simon from the Users list, then click the Select button at the bottom of the screen.
    2. If you are expecting a role to be assigned to the users, you can select it from the Select a role dropdown. If no role has been set up for this app, you see "Default Access" role selected.
    3. In the Add Assignment dialog, click the Assign button.

Configure PerimeterX SSO

  1. Login to your PerimeterX console with Admin permissions.

  2. Navigate to Admin > ACCOUNTS 

    PerimeterX sso

  3. Click Edit

  4. In the Edit Account dialog, perform the following steps.

    PerimeterX sso edit account

    a. Check Enable Single Sign-On (SSO)

    b. Select Azure SAML.

    c. In the SAML Endpoint textbox, paste the Login URL value you copied the Azure portal.

    d. In the Issuer textbox, Paste the Microsoft Entra Identifier value copied.

    e. Open the downloaded Certificate (Base64) into Notepad and paste the content into the X.509 Certificate textbox.

    f. Click on Save Changes

Create PerimeterX test user

Please refer to the PerimeterX Managing Users Guide for instructions on how to create the PerimeterX test user.

Test SSO

In this section, you test your Microsoft Entra single sign-on configuration with following options.

  1. Click on Test this application, and you should be automatically signed in to the PerimeterX for which you set up the SSO

  2. You can use Microsoft Access Panel. When you click the PerimeterX tile in the Access Panel, you should be automatically signed in to the PerimeterX for which you set up the SSO. For more information about the Access Panel, see Introduction to the Access Panel.

Next Steps

Once you configure PerimeterX you can enforce session control, which protects exfiltration and infiltration of your organization’s sensitive data in real time. Session control extends from Conditional Access. Learn how to enforce session control with Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps.