Duo Single Sign-On for Okta

If you're looking to add Duo as a multifactor option directly to Okta without deploying Duo SSO, please see Duo Multifactor for Okta.

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 Okta 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 Okta.

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

Configure Single Sign-On

Before configuring Okta 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 Okta application in Duo.

Create the Okta Application in Duo

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

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

3. Okta uses the Mail attribute, First name attribute, and Last name 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

   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.

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

We've already updated the Duo Okta application hosted in Duo's service to support the Universal Prompt, so there's no action required on your part to update the application itself. If you created your Okta application before March 2024, you can activate the Universal Prompt experience for users from the Duo Admin Panel. Okta applications created after March 2024 have the Universal Prompt activated by default.

If you created your Okta application before March 2024, it's a good idea to read the Universal Prompt Update Guide for more information, about the update process and the new login experience for users, before you activate the Universal Prompt for your application.

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.

The "Universal Prompt" area of the application details page shows that this application is "Ready to activate", 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" here and on the Universal Prompt Update Progress report.

Should you ever want to roll back to the traditional prompt, you can return to this setting and change it back to Show traditional prompt. However, this will still deliver the Duo prompt via redirect, not in an iframe. Keep in mind that support for the traditional Duo prompt ended for the majority of applications in March 2024.

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 Okta for SSO

1. Log into your Okta account as an administrator.

2. Navigate to Security → Identity Providers and click Add identity provider.

3. Select SAML 2.0 IdP and then click Next.

4. Under "General settings", enter a unique name for your IdP configuration into the Name field.

5. Under "Authentication Settings", click the IdP Usage drop-down menu and select SSO only.

6. Click the IdP username drop-down menu and select idpuser.subjectNameId.

7. Next to Filter, make sure the Only allow usernames that match defined RegEx Pattern checkbox is unchecked.

8. Click the Match against drop-down menu and select Okta Username or Email.

9. Click the Account Link Policy drop-down menu and select Automatic.

10. Click Auto-Link Restrictions drop-down menu and select None.

11. Next to If no match is found, click the Create new user (JIT) radio button.

    

12. Return to the Okta application page in the Duo Admin Panel. Under "Metadata", copy the Issuer URI and paste it into the Okta IdP Issuer URI field under "SAML Protocol Settings".

13. Return to the Okta application page in the Duo Admin Panel. Copy the Single Sign-On URL and paste it into the Okta IdP Single Sign-On URL field.

    

14. Return to the Okta application page in the Duo Admin Panel. Under "Downloads", click Download certificate.

15. Return to your Okta account page. Click Browse files next to IdP Signature Certificate. Open the certificate file you downloaded from Duo earlier.

16. In your Okta account page, click the Request Binding drop-down menu and select HTTP POST.

17. Next to Request Signature, click the Sign SAML Authentication Requests checkbox.

18. Click the Request Signature Algorithm drop-down menu and select SHA-256.

19. Click the Response Signature Verification drop-down menu and select Response or Assertion.

20. Click the next Request Signature Algorithm drop-down menu and select SHA-256.

21. Leave the Destination field blank.

22. Next to Okta Assertion Consumer Service URL, click the Trust-specific radio button.

23. Set Max Clock Skew to 2 Milliseconds.

    

24. Click Finish. Your IdP configuration page opens.

25. Under "Summary", copy the Assertion Consumer Service URL and paste it into the Duo Admin Panel Assertion Consumer Service URL field.

26. Return to your Okta account page. Copy the Audience URI and paste it into the Duo Admin Panel Audience URI field.

    

27. In the Okta application page in the Duo Admin Panel., scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save.

Create a Rule

You must create a rule before you can log into your account using SSO. To create a rule, do the following:

1. Navigate to Security → Identity Providers.

2. Click the Routing rules tab and then click Add Routing Rule.

3. Type a name for your rule into the Rule Name field.

4. In the IdP(s) field, remove Okta and select your IdP. Leave all other settings at their default values.

5. Click Create rule.

   

6. The "Activate Rule?" pop-up window opens. Click Activate.

Group Mapping

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

1. Log into your Okta account as an administrator.

2. Navigate to Directory → Groups.

3. Click Add group. The "Add group" pop-up window opens.

4. Type a name for your group into the Name field and click Save.

5. Refresh the page to see your created group. Click your group and configure your group settings in the People, Applications, Profile, Directories, and Admin roles tabs.

6. Navigate to Security → Identity Providers.

7. To the right of your IdP, click the Actions drop-down menu and select Configure Identity Provider. Your IdP configuration page opens.

8. Scroll down to the "General settings" section and click Edit.

9. Scroll down to the "JIT Settings" section and click the Update attributes for existing users checkbox.

10. Click the Group Assignments drop-down menu and select Add user to missing groups.

11. In the SAML Attribute Name field, type Groups.

12. In the Group Filter field, start to type the group name you created earlier. Select your group from the list that appears.

    

13. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Update Identity Provider.

14. Return to the Okta application page in the Duo Admin Panel. Under "Service Provider", type the name of your group into the Okta Group Name field.

15. In the Okta application page in the Duo Admin Panel, click the Duo groups drop-down menu and select the applicable Duo group.

    

16. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save.

Learn more about Okta SSO at the Okta Help Center.

Using SSO

After you have created a rule, you can log into Okta by navigating to your Okta SSO page e.g., https://yourdomain-1234567.okta.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 Okta to complete the login process.

* Universal Prompt experience shown.

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

Congratulations! Your Okta 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 Okta 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.