Duo Single Sign-On for Cirrus Identity

Overview

As business applications move from on-premises to cloud hosted solutions, users experience password fatigue due to disparate logons for different applications. Single sign-on (SSO) technologies seek to unify identities across systems and reduce the number of different credentials a user has to remember or input to gain access to resources.

While SSO is convenient for users, it presents new security challenges. If a user's primary password is compromised, attackers may be able to gain access to multiple resources. In addition, as sensitive information makes its way to cloud-hosted services it is even more important to secure access by implementing two-factor authentication and zero-trust policies.

About Duo Single Sign-On

Duo Single Sign-On is our cloud-hosted SSO product which layers Duo's strong authentication and flexible policy engine on top of Cirrus Identity logins. Duo Single Sign-On acts as an identity provider (IdP), authenticating your users using existing on-premises Active Directory (AD) or another SSO IdP. Duo SSO prompts users for two-factor authentication and performs endpoint assessment and verification before permitting access to Cirrus Identity.

Duo Single Sign-On is available in Duo Premier, Duo Advantage, and Duo Essentials plans, which also include the ability to define policies that enforce unique controls for each individual SSO application. For example, you can require that Salesforce users complete two-factor authentication at every login, but only once every seven days when accessing Cirrus Identity. Duo checks the user, device, and network against an application's policy before allowing access to the application.

Configure Single Sign-On

Before configuring Cirrus Identity with Duo SSO using Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) 2.0 authentication you'll first need to enable Duo Single Sign-On for your Duo account and configure a working authentication source.

Once you have your SSO authentication source working, continue to the next step of creating the Cirrus Identity application in Duo.

Create the Cirrus Identity Application in Duo

1. Log on to the Duo Admin Panel and navigate to Applications.

2. Locate the entry for Cirrus Identity with a protection type of "2FA with SSO hosted by Duo (Single Sign-On)" in the applications list. Click Protect to the far-right to start configuring Cirrus Identity. See Protecting Applications for more information about protecting applications with Duo and additional application options. You'll need the information on the Cirrus Identity page under Downloads later.

3. Cirrus Identity uses the Mail attribute when authenticating. We've mapped the <Email Address> bridge attribute to Duo Single Sign-On supported authentication source attributes as follows:

   Bridge Attribute	Active Directory	SAML IdP
   <Email Address>	mail	Email

   If you are using a non-standard email attribute for your authentication source, check the Custom attributes box and enter the name of the attribute you wish to use instead.

4. You can adjust additional settings for your new SAML application at this time — like changing the application's name from the default value, enabling self-service, or assigning a group policy.

5. Keep the Duo Admin Panel tab open. You will come back to it later.

Duo Universal Prompt

The Duo Universal Prompt provides a simplified and accessible Duo login experience for web-based applications, offering a redesigned visual interface with security and usability enhancements.

Universal Prompt	Traditional Prompt

The Duo Cirrus Identity application supports the Universal Prompt by default, so there's no additional action required on your part to start using the newest authentication experience.

Activate Universal Prompt

Activation of the Universal Prompt is a per-application change. Activating it for one application does not change the login experience for your other Duo applications. Universal Prompt is already activated for new Cirrus Identity applications at creation.

The "Universal Prompt" area of the application details page shows that this application's status is "Activation complete", with these activation control options:

• Show traditional prompt: Your users experience Duo's traditional prompt via redirect when logging in to this application.
• Show new Universal Prompt: (Default) Your users experience the Universal Prompt via redirect when logging in to this application.

The application's Universal Prompt status shows "Activation complete" both here and on the Universal Prompt Update Progress report.

For the time being, you may change this setting to Show traditional prompt to use the legacy experience. Keep in mind that support for the traditional Duo prompt ended for the majority of applications in March 2024. This option will be removed in the future.

Universal Update Progress

Click the See Update Progress link to view the Universal Prompt Update Progress report. This report shows the update availability and migration progress for all your Duo applications. You can also activate the new prompt experience for multiple supported applications from the report page instead of visiting the individual details pages for each application.

Enable Cirrus Identity for SSO

To enable Cirrus Identity for SSO, you will need to configure the Service Provider (SP) in Cirrus Identity and the Identity Provider (IdP) in Duo.

Configure the Service Provider

1. Log into your Cirrus Identity account as an administrator.

2. In the left menu sidebar, navigate to WEBSERVICES → Admin → SAML Integration. The "SAML Integration" page opens.

3. Click the Enable SAML2 Authentication checkbox.

4. Enter a unique name for your identity provider into the SAML Identity Provider name field.

5. Type mail into the Login attribute name field.

6. Click the Lookup user in Cirrus via drop-down menu and select the applicable value for your configuration.

7. Click the From URL radio button.

8. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. In the "Metadata" section, copy the Metadata URL and paste it into the Cirrus Identity Metadata upload field.

   

9. In Cirrus Identity, click the Single Sign-On mode drop-down menu and select Mixed or Automatic.

   Note: If you select Mixed, you will have the option to log into Cirrus Identity using either SSO or a username and password. If you select Automatic, you will be automatically redirected to Duo for SSO authentication.

10. Click Save configuration.

Configure the Identity Provider

Note: Cirrus Identity requires you to have the Binding "Redirect" configured. This is a default setting for the Duo Admin Panel, so no action is required.

1. In the Duo Admin Panel, scroll down to the "Service Provider" section. Click the Metadata Discovery drop-down menu and select Metadata XML URL.

2. Copy the metadata URL provided to you by Cirrus Identity, paste it into the Duo Admin Panel Metadata XML URL field, and then click Populate. The remaining fields in the "Service Provider" section should auto-populate with your Cirrus Identity information.

   

3. Scroll down to the "SAML Response" section. Click the NameID format drop-down menu and select urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:emailAddress.

4. Click the NameID attribute drop-down menu and select Email Address.

   

5. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Save.

Learn more about Cirrus Identity SSO at Cirrus Identity Documentation.

Using SSO

If you selected Mixed as your Cirrus Identity SSO login method, you can log on by navigating to your Cirrus Identity login page e.g., https://yoursubdomain.cirrus.com/#/login. Click Login with (your SSO) to be redirected to Duo Single Sign-On to begin authentication.

If you selected Automatic as your Cirrus Identity SSO login method, you can log on using your Cirrus Identity base URL e.g., https://yoursubdomain.cirrus.com. You will be automatically redirected to Duo Single Sign-On to begin authentication.

Active Directory Login

With Active Directory as the Duo SSO authentication source, enter the primary username (email address) on the Duo SSO login page and click or tap Next.

Enter the AD primary password and click or tap Log in to continue.

Enable Duo Passwordless to log in to Duo SSO backed by Active Directory authentication without entering a password in the future.

SAML Login

With another SAML identity provider as the Duo SSO authentication source, Duo SSO immediately redirects the login attempt to that SAML IdP for primary authentication. Users do not see the Duo SSO primary login screen.

Duo Authentication

Successful verification of your primary credentials by Active Directory or a SAML IdP redirects back to Duo. Complete Duo two-factor authentication when prompted and then you'll return to Cirrus Identity to complete the login process.

* Universal Prompt experience shown.

You can also log into Cirrus Identity using Duo Central, our cloud-hosted portal which allows users to access all of their applications in one spot. Link to Cirrus Identity in Duo Central by adding it as an application tile. Once the tile has been added, log into Duo Central and click the tile for IdP-initiated authentication to Cirrus Identity.

Congratulations! Your Cirrus Identity users now authenticate using Duo Single Sign-On.

See the full user login experience, including expired password reset (available for Active Directory authentication sources) in the Duo End User Guide for SSO.

Enable Remembered Devices

To minimize additional Duo two-factor prompts when switching between Cirrus Identity and your other Duo Single Sign-On SAML applications, be sure to apply a shared "Remembered Devices" policy to your SAML applications.

Troubleshooting

Need some help? Try searching our Knowledge Base articles or Community discussions. For further assistance, contact Support.