Duo Single Sign-On for FileCloud

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 FileCloud 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 FileCloud.

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 FileCloud. Duo checks the user, device, and network against an application's policy before allowing access to the application.

Configure Single Sign-On

Before configuring FileCloud 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 FileCloud application in Duo.

Create the FileCloud Application in Duo

1. Log in to the Duo Admin Panel and navigate to Applications → Protect an Application.

2. Locate the entry for FileCloud 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 FileCloud. See Protecting Applications for more information about protecting applications with Duo and additional application options. You'll need the information on the FileCloud page under Metadata later.

3. No users can log in to new applications until you grant access. Update the User access setting to grant access to this application to users in selected Duo groups, or to all users. Learn more about user access to applications. If you do not change this setting now, be sure to update it so that your test user has access before you test your setup.

4. FileCloud uses the Mail attribute, First name attribute, Last name attribute, and Username attribute when authenticating. We've mapped the bridge attributes to Duo Single Sign-On supported authentication source attributes as follows:

   Bridge Attribute	Active Directory	SAML IdP
   <Email Address>	mail	Email
   <First Name>	givenName	FirstName
   <Last Name>	sn	LastName
   <Username>	sAMAccountName	Username

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

5. 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.

6. 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 FileCloud 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 FileCloud 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 FileCloud for SSO

1. Log into your FileCloud account as an administrator.

2. In the sidebar menu, click Settings.

3. At the top of the page, click the Server tab.

4. Copy the Server URL and paste it into the Duo Admin Panel Server URL field, under "Service Provider".

   

5. Return to FileCloud. Click the SSO tab.

6. Under "Single Sign On (SSO)", click the Default SSO Type drop-down menu and select SAML.

7. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Under "Metadata", copy the Idp Endpoint URL or EntityID and paste it into the FileCloud Idp Endpoint URL or EntityID field, under "SAML Settings".

   

8. In FileCloud, make sure the following text is pre-populated in the respective fields:

   • uid is in the IdP Username Parameter field.

   • mail is in the IdP Email Parameter field.

   • givenName is in the IdP Given Name Paremeter field.

   • sn is in the IdP Surname Parameter field.

9. Open a new web page.

10. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Copy the Idp Endpoint URL or EntityID and paste it into the new web page address bar. Press Enter to view the metadata text.

11. Copy the metadata text and paste it into the FileCloud IdP Meta Data field.

12. In FileCloud, click the Allow Account Signups drop-down menu and select TRUE.

13. Click the Automatic Account Approval drop-down menu and select the desired value.

14. Click the Enable ADFS drop-down menu and select NO.

15. Click the Show the Idp Login Screen checkbox to force all users to log in with SSO.

    Note: If you want to allow users to log in with their email address, do not check the Show the Idp Login Screen checkbox.

16. In the top-right corner of the page, click Save.

17. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Save.

Group Mapping

You have the option to map Duo groups to different groups in FileCloud. To map Duo groups, do the following:

1. Log into your FileCloud account as an administrator.

2. In the sidebar menu, click Settings.

3. At the top of the page, click the SSO tab.

4. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Under "Service Provider", click the Duo groups drop-down menu and select the Duo group you want to map.

5. In the Duo Admin Panel, type the name of the Duo group you selected earlier into the FileCloud groups field.

   

6. Return to FileCloud. Under "SAML Settings", type the name of the Duo group you selected earlier into the Limit Login to Idp Group (Optional) field.

7. In the top-right corner of the page, click Save.

8. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Save.

Learn more about FileCloud SSO at FileCloud Docs.

Using SSO

You can log on to FileCloud by navigating to your FileCloud SSO page e.g., https://yourserver.filecloudonline.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 FileCloud to complete the login process.

* Universal Prompt experience shown.

You can also log into FileCloud using Duo Central, our cloud-hosted portal which allows users to access all of their applications in one spot. Link to FileCloud 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 FileCloud.

Congratulations! Your FileCloud 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.

Grant Access to Users

If you did not already grant user access to the Duo users you want to use this application be sure to do that before inviting or requiring them to log in with Duo.

Enable Remembered Devices

To minimize additional Duo two-factor prompts when switching between FileCloud 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.