Duo Single Sign-On for Plixer Scrutinizer

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 Plixer Scrutinizer 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 Plixer Scrutinizer.

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

Configure Single Sign-On

Before configuring Plixer Scrutinizer 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 Plixer Scrutinizer application in Duo.

Create the Plixer Scrutinizer Application in Duo

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

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

3. Plixer Scrutinizer 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 Plixer Scrutinizer 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 Plixer Scrutinizer 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 Plixer Scrutinizer for SSO

1. Log into your Plixer Scrutinizer account as an administrator.

2. In the menu bar at the top of the page, navigate to Admin → Security → Single Sign-On.

3. Click Add Server. The "Add Identity Provider" pop-up window opens.

4. Enter a unique name for your identity provider into the Name field.

5. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Under "Metadata", copy the IdP Identifier URL and paste it into the Plixer Scrutinizer IdP Identifier URL field.

   

6. In the Plixer Scrutinizer web address bar, copy your server address URL and paste it into the Entity ID and Assertion URL fields of the "Add Identity Provider" pop-up window.

   Example: If the URL in your web address bar is https://yourserver/oldui/admin/sso, then your server address URL is https://yourserver.

7. In the Assertion URL field, type /fcgi/scrut_fcgi.fcgi?rm=usergroups&action=sso_response at the end of your server URL.

   Example: https://yourserver/fcgi/scrut_fcgi.fcgi?rm=usergroups&action=sso_response

8. Type nameid into the Name Attribute field.

9. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Under "Downloads", click Download XML. Open the XML file in a text editor (like Notepad) and copy the entire contents of the file. Paste the XML file text into the Plixer Scrutinizer IdP Metadata XML field.

10. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Click Copy certificate and paste the certificate text into the Plixer Scrutinizer Signing Certificate field.

11. In Plixer Scrutinizer, click Save.

12. In the web address bar, copy your server address and paste it into the Duo Admin Panel Scrutinizer Server field, under "Service Provider".

    Example: If the URL in your web address bar is https://yourserver/oldui/admin/sso, then your server address is yourserver.

    

13. In 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 Plixer Scrutinizer.

1. Log into your Plixer Scrutinizer account as an administrator.

2. In the menu bar at the top of the page, navigate to Admin → Security → Usergroups.

3. Click New User. The "New User Group" pop-up window opens.

4. Enter a unique name for your group into the Usergroup Name field.

5. Click the Starting template drop-down menu and select Guests.

6. Click Save. The "Members" pop-up window opens.

7. Move all applicable users from the "Deny" section to the "Allow" section, and then click Close.

8. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Under "Service Provider", enter your created group name into the Plixer Scrutinizer Group Name field.

9. Select the applicable Duo group from the Duo groups drop-down menu.

   

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

Learn more about Plixer Scrutinizer SSO at Plixer Online Documentation.

Add a Tile to Duo Central

Duo Central is our cloud-hosted portal which allows users to access all of their applications in one spot. Plixer Scrutinizer requires IdP-initiated sign-on, so you must add an application tile for it to Duo Central for your users to access the application. To add a tile for Plixer Scrutinizer to Duo Central, do the following:

1. In the Duo Admin Panel, navigate to Single Sign-On → Duo Central.

2. If you have not already enabled Duo Central, review the information on the page and click Get Started. Complete the initial Duo Central configuration before proceeding to the next step.

3. Click Add tile and then click Add application tile.

4. Click the checkbox next to "Plixer Scrutinizer - Single Sign-On".

5. Click Add tile.

See Duo Central to learn more about adding an application tile.

Using SSO

Log into Duo Central with your custom URL, and then click the Plixer Scrutinizer - Single Sign-On tile to be redirected to Duo Single Sign-On to begin authentication.

If you do not know your Duo Central custom URL, you can find it in the Duo Admin Panel by navigating to Single Sign-On → Duo Central. In the upper right corner of the page, click your Duo Central custom URL to access the Plixer Scrutinizer tile.

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 Plixer Scrutinizer to complete the login process.

* Universal Prompt experience shown.

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

Congratulations! Your Plixer Scrutinizer 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 Plixer Scrutinizer 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.