Duo Single Sign-On for Parallels

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 Parallels 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 Parallels.

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

Configure Single Sign-On

Before configuring Parallels 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 Parallels application in Duo.

Create the Parallels Application in Duo

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

2. Locate the entry for Parallels 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 Parallels. See Protecting Applications for more information about protecting applications with Duo and additional application options. You'll need the information on the Parallels page under Downloads 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. Parallels uses the Mail attribute, Username attribute, and Display 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
   <Username>	sAMAccountName	Username
   <Display Name>	displayName	DisplayName

   If you are using non-standard attributes for your authentication source, check the Custom attributes box and enter the names 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 Parallels 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 Parallels 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 Parallels for SSO

Verify Your Domain

1. Log into your Parallels account as an administrator.

2. In the upper right corner of the page, navigate to Business Profile → SSO.

3. Click Start Configuring.

4. Click 1 Configure Your Organization's Domain(s) to expand the menu.

5. Follow the on-screen instructions to configure your DNS host with the TXT record.

6. When your DNS host is verified, your domain status in Parallels will show as Verified. Domain verification can take up to 72 hours and must be completed before you go to the next section.

Add Parallels to Duo

This was completed in the "Create the Parallels Application in Duo" section earlier. To confirm in Parallels that this was completed, do the following:

1. Click 2 Register the Parallels Enterprise App to expand the menu.

2. Click the Configuration in the IdP Directory is complete checkbox.

Group Mapping

There is no action required in the 3 Configure User Groups Mapping section in Parallels. You will configure the required groups in Duo.

1. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Navigate to Users → Groups and create the following Duo groups:

   • Parallels Admins

   • Parallels Desktop Users

   • Transit

2. Navigate to Users → Users and add users to the groups you created earlier.

3. Return to your Parallels application in Duo. Under "Service Provider", type Parallels Admins into the Parallels groups field.

4. Click the Duo groups drop-down menu and select the Parallels Admins group you created earlier.

5. Click + at next to the Duo Groups drop-down menu to add a new group row.

6. Repeat steps 3, 4, and 5 to add Parallels Desktop Users.

7. Repeat steps 2 and 3 to add Transit. See the image below for an example of how your groups configuration should look.

   

Configure SAML

1. Click 4 Configure SAML Integration to expand the menu.

2. Under "Service Provider Settings", click Download the metadata file.

3. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Under "Service Provider", click Choose file and open the XML metadata file you downloaded from Parallels earlier.

4. In the Duo Admin Panel under "Downloads", click Download XML.

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

6. Return to Parallels. Under "Identity Provider Settings", click Upload the metadata file and open the XML metadata file you downloaded from Duo earlier.

7. At the bottom of the 4 Configure SAML Integration section, click Save.

Add Users to Groups

There is no action required in the 5 Configure SCIM Integration section in Parallels. You can skip this section.

You already added users to groups in the "Group Mapping" section earlier. To confirm in Parallels that this was completed, do the following:

1. Click 6 Add Users to Application Groups to expand the menu.

2. Click the Configuration in the IdP Directory is complete checkbox.

Set Up a Backup Login

1. Click 7 Set Up Backup Login to expand the menu.

2. Click the Backup Login drop-down menu and select the email address you want to use as a backup to log into Parallels.

3. Click Save.

Learn more about Parallels SSO at the Parallels Documentation Page.

Using SSO

You can log on to Parallels by navigating to your Parallels SSO page e.g., https://my.parallels.com/login. Click Contine with SSO. Enter your email address and click Continue to be 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 Parallels to complete the login process.

* Universal Prompt experience shown.

Parallels supports SP-initiated authentication only, meaning that you must start your SSO login from that application's sign-in page. You won't be able to add Parallels as an application tile in Duo Central for IdP-initiated logins.

Congratulations! Your Parallels 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 Parallels 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.