Tutorial: Azure Active Directory single sign-on (SSO) integration with SolarWinds Orion
In this tutorial, you'll learn how to integrate SolarWinds Orion with Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). When you integrate SolarWinds Orion with Azure AD, you can:
- Control in Azure AD who has access to SolarWinds Orion.
- Enable your users to be automatically signed-in to SolarWinds Orion with their Azure AD accounts.
- Manage your accounts in one central location - the Azure portal.
Prerequisites
To get started, you need the following items:
- An Azure AD subscription. If you don't have a subscription, you can get a free account.
- SolarWinds Orion single sign-on (SSO) enabled subscription.
Scenario description
In this tutorial, you configure and test Azure AD SSO in a test environment.
- SolarWinds Orion supports SP and IDP initiated SSO.
Add SolarWinds Orion from the gallery
To configure the integration of SolarWinds Orion into Azure AD, you need to add SolarWinds Orion from the gallery to your list of managed SaaS apps.
- Sign in to the Azure portal using either a work or school account, or a personal Microsoft account.
- On the left navigation pane, select the Azure Active Directory service.
- Navigate to Enterprise Applications and then select All Applications.
- To add new application, select New application.
- In the Add from the gallery section, type SolarWinds Orion in the search box.
- Select SolarWinds Orion from results panel and then add the app. Wait a few seconds while the app is added to your tenant.
Configure and test Azure AD SSO for SolarWinds Orion
Configure and test Azure AD SSO with SolarWinds Orion using a test user called B.Simon. For SSO to work, you need to establish a link relationship between an Azure AD user and the related user in SolarWinds Orion.
To configure and test Azure AD SSO with SolarWinds Orion, perform the following steps:
- Configure Azure AD SSO - to enable your users to use this feature.
- Create an Azure AD test user - to test Azure AD single sign-on with B.Simon.
- Assign the Azure AD test user - to enable B.Simon to use Azure AD single sign-on.
- Configure SolarWinds Orion SSO - to configure the single sign-on settings on application side.
- Create SolarWinds Orion test user - to have a counterpart of B.Simon in SolarWinds Orion that is linked to the Azure AD representation of user.
- Test SSO - to verify whether the configuration works.
Configure Azure AD SSO
Follow these steps to enable Azure AD SSO in the Azure portal.
In the Azure portal, on the SolarWinds Orion application integration page, find the Manage section and select single sign-on.
On the Select a single sign-on method page, select SAML.
On the Set up single sign-on with SAML page, click the pencil icon for Basic SAML Configuration to edit the settings.

On the Basic SAML Configuration section, if you wish to configure the application in IDP initiated mode, enter the values for the following fields:
a. In the Identifier text box, type a URL using the following pattern:
https://<ORION-HOSTNAME-OR-EXTERNAL-URL>b. In the Reply URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern:
https://<ORION-HOSTNAME-OR-EXTERNAL-URL>/Orion/SAMLLogin.aspxClick Set additional URLs and perform the following step if you wish to configure the application in SP initiated mode:
In the Sign-on URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern:
https://<ORION-HOSTNAME-OR-EXTERNAL-URL>/Orion/Login.aspxNote
These values are not real. Update these values with the actual Identifier, Reply URL and Sign-on URL. Contact SolarWinds Orion Client support team to get these values. You can also refer to the patterns shown in the Basic SAML Configuration section in the Azure portal.
SolarWinds Orion 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.

In addition to above, SolarWinds Orion 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 Email user.mail In User Attributes & Claims section, click the pencil icon to edit and click Add a group claim.

Choose Security groups.
If you have Azure AD synchronized with your on-premises AD, change Source attribute to sAMAccountName. Otherwise, leave it as Group ID.
In the Advanced options, tick mark Customize the name of the group claim and give OrionGroups as the name.
Click Save.
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.

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

Create an Azure AD test user
In this section, you'll create a test user in the Azure portal called B.Simon.
- From the left pane in the Azure portal, select Azure Active Directory, select Users, and then select All users.
- Select New user at the top of the screen.
- In the User properties, follow these steps:
- In the Name field, enter
B.Simon. - In the User name field, enter the username@companydomain.extension. For example,
B.Simon@contoso.com. - Select the Show password check box, and then write down the value that's displayed in the Password box.
- Click Create.
- In the Name field, enter
Assign the Azure AD test user
In this section, you'll enable B.Simon to use Azure single sign-on by granting access to Evergreen.
- In the Azure portal, select Enterprise Applications, and then select All applications.
- In the applications list, select Evergreen.
- In the app's overview page, find the Manage section and select Users and groups.
- Select Add user, then select Users and groups in the Add Assignment dialog.
- In the Users and groups dialog, select B.Simon from the Users list, then click the Select button at the bottom of the screen.
- 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.
- In the Add Assignment dialog, click the Assign button.
Configure SolarWinds Orion SSO
Log in to the SolarWinds Orion and go to the Settings -> All Settings.

In the USER ACCOUNTS section, select SAML Configuration.

Click on ADD IDENTITY PROVIDER.

Perform the following steps in the Add Identity Provider page:

a. Go to the Configure tab.
b. In the Identity Provider Name textbox, give any valid name like
My SSO service.c. In the SSO Target URL textbox, paste the Login URL value, which you have copied from the Azure portal.
d. In the Issuer URL textbox, paste the Azure AD Identifier value, which you have copied from the Azure portal.
e. Open the downloaded Certificate (Base64) from the Azure portal into Notepad and paste the content into the X.509 Signing Certificate textbox.
f. Click on Save.
Create SolarWinds Orion test user
Log in to the SolarWinds Orion website and go to the Settings -> All Settings.

In the USER ACCOUNTS section, select Manage Accounts.

In the INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTS tab, click on ADD NEW ACCOUNT.

Select the type of account, which you need to create either SAML individual users or groups.

In the NAME ID textbox, enter the name that must match with the username or group name exactly as in Azure AD.
Click on Next and then submit the page.

Test SSO
In this section, you test your Azure AD single sign-on configuration with following options.
SP initiated:
Click on Test this application in Azure portal. This will redirect to SolarWinds Orion Sign on URL where you can initiate the login flow.
Go to SolarWinds Orion Sign-on URL directly and initiate the login flow from there.
IDP initiated:
- Click on Test this application in Azure portal and you should be automatically signed in to the SolarWinds Orion for which you set up the SSO.
You can also use Microsoft My Apps to test the application in any mode. When you click the SolarWinds Orion tile in the My Apps, if configured in SP mode you would be redirected to the application sign on page for initiating the login flow and if configured in IDP mode, you should be automatically signed in to the SolarWinds Orion for which you set up the SSO. For more information about the My Apps, see Introduction to the My Apps.
Next steps
Once you configure SolarWinds Orion 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.