Enabling SAML using AD FS

When using Microsoft Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) as an identity provider, complete the following steps to enable SAML authentication for your organization:

  1. Retrieve IdP information generated for your organization.
  2. Create an AD FS relying party trust for IBM StreamSets.
  3. Set up a draft SAML configuration for your organization.
  4. Publish and enable the SAML configuration.
Important: As a best practice, these steps instruct you to require encryption on assertion which automatically includes the IBM StreamSets certificate in the IBM StreamSets SAML metadata file. If you do not want to upload the certificate to AD FS, you can disable encryption on assertion and then download the SAML metadata file without the certificate. For more information, see Service Provider Certificates.

Step 1. Retrieve IdP Information

In Control Hub, choose AD FS as your identity provider and then retrieve the IdP information generated for your organization.

  1. As a user with the Organization Administrator role, log in to IBM StreamSets using local or public identity provider authentication.
  2. In the Control Hub Navigation panel, click Manage > My Organization.
  3. Click Configure SAML.
  4. Click the Draft tab.
  5. Choose AD FS as your SAML identity provider.
  6. In the IdP SAML Configuration section on the right, verify that the Require Encryption on Assertion property is enabled and then click Download StreamSets SAML Metadata.

    The metadata XML file is saved to your default downloads directory.

  7. Click Save to save the changes made to the draft SAML configuration.

Step 2. Create an AD FS Relying Party Trust

To register IBM StreamSets as a service provider in AD FS, use the IdP information that you retrieved from Control Hub to create a relying party trust in AD FS.

Then, configure a claims issuance policy for the trust to send email addresses and optionally user names of Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) users to IBM StreamSets. Any user in AD DS can log in to IBM StreamSets, as long as the user is invited to the Control Hub organization using the AD DS email address.

Note: These steps provide brief instructions to create a relying party trust using the AD FS Management tool installed on Windows Server 2019. For detailed steps, see the Microsoft AD FS documentation.
  1. Open Server Manager on the server that is running AD FS, and in the top right corner click Tools > AD FS Management.
  2. Right-click the Relying Party Trusts folder, and then select Add Relying Party Trust.

  3. In the Welcome page of the wizard, select Claims aware, and then click Start.
  4. In the Select Data Source page of the wizard, select Import data about the relying party from a file, and then click Browse and select the metadata XML file that you downloaded from Control Hub.

  5. Click Next.
  6. In the Specify Display Name page of the wizard, enter a display name.

    For example, you might enter StreamSets SAML.

  7. Click Next.
  8. In the Choose Access Control Policy page of the wizard, choose the policy required by your corporate regulations, and then click Next.
  9. In the Ready to Add Trust page of the wizard, verify your configurations, and then click Next.
  10. In the Finish page of the wizard, select Configure claims issuance policy for the application, and then click Close.

    The Edit Claims Issuance Policy for <relying trust name> dialog box appears.

  11. Click Add Rule.
  12. In the Choose Rule Type page of the claim rule wizard, select Send LDAP Attributes as Claims for the Claim rule template property.
  13. Click Next.
  14. In the Configure Claim Rule page of the wizard, enter a name for the rule.

    For example, you might enter StreamSets Attribute Mappings.

  15. For the Attribute store property, select Active Directory.
  16. In the Mappings table, configure the following attribute mappings so that AD FS passes user information to IBM StreamSets.

    Configuring the email address is required. Configuring the user names is optional. For more information, see IdP Attribute Mappings.

    LDAP Attribute Outgoing Claim Type
    E-Mail-Addresses Select Name ID from the drop-down menu.
    Given-Name (optional) Type firstName.
    Surname (optional) Type lastName.
    Display-Name (optional) Type displayName.

    For example, the following image displays mappings for the required email address and the optional user names:

  17. Click OK.
  18. In the Edit Claims Issuance Policy for <relying trust name> dialog box, click OK.

    The AD FS Management tool displays the relying party trust added for IBM StreamSets.

  19. Use Microsoft PowerShell to run the following command on the server where AD FS is installed:
    Set-AdfsRelyingPartyTrust -TargetName "<relying trust name>" -SamlResponseSignature "MessageAndAssertion"
  20. To enable IdP-initiated logins from AD FS, use PowerShell to run the following command on the server where AD FS is installed:
    Set-AdfsProperties -EnableIdPInitiatedSignonPage $true
  21. Retrieve the AD FS metadata file.
    1. Append the following endpoint to the DNS address of the server where AD FS is installed:
      /FederationMetadata/2007-06/FederationMetadata.xml

      For example, enter the following URL in the address bar of a browser:

      https://<DNS address>/FederationMetadata/2007-06/FederationMetadata.xml
    2. Download the generated metadata file from the browser.

Step 3. Set up a Draft SAML Configuration

In Control Hub, set up the draft SAML configuration for your organization by uploading the metadata XML file downloaded from AD FS, and then optionally configuring advanced properties. You can also enable or disable SP-initiated logins.

  1. In the Control Hub Navigation panel, click Manage > My Organization.
  2. Click Configure SAML.
  3. Click the Draft tab.
  4. In the Organization SAML Settings section, click Upload Metadata File from IdP and upload the metadata file that you downloaded from AD FS.

    By default, the IdP Login Page property is automatically populated from the uploaded metadata, and SP-initiated logins from IBM StreamSets are enabled, as follows:

  5. To disable SP-initiated logins and require IdP-initiated logins, disable the SP Initiated Login property.

    For more information, see IdP and SP-initiated Logins.

  6. If you created custom attribute statements in AD FS that do not match the default values displayed for the IdP user properties, modify the property values as needed.

    If you created the attribute mappings as instructed in Step 2. Create an AD FS Relying Party Trust, you can use the default values. For more information, see IdP Attribute Mappings.

  7. Optionally, click Show Advanced and modify the advanced properties.

    Control Hub automatically populates the advanced property values from the uploaded metadata file. In most cases, you do not need to modify the advanced properties.

  8. Click Save.
  9. If you enabled SP-initiated logins, click Test to test the configuration.

    The SAML debug console displays, indicating whether IBM StreamSets is able to successfully send a request to AD FS and receive a response. In case of a failure, use the listed errors to help you troubleshoot issues.

Step 4. Publish and Enable the SAML Configuration

After testing and validating that the draft SAML configuration is set up correctly with AD FS, publish the configuration to production and then enable the configuration to activate it.

  1. In the Draft tab, click Publish at the bottom of the Organization SAML Settings section.
  2. Click Confirm.

    The Production tab displays a read-only version of the SAML configuration.

  3. At the bottom of the Production tab, click Enable to enable SAML authentication for your organization.
  4. Click Confirm.

    When enabled, all organization users must log in using SAML authentication. For more information, see IdP and SP-initiated Logins.

    To invite new users to the organization, first verify that the users exist in Microsoft Active Directory Domain Service (AD DS). Then in Control Hub, use the email addresses from AD DS to invite the users. For more information, see Adding Users.

    If existing organization users are AD DS users and originally joined with their email address from AD DS, they simply use SAML authentication for the next login session. If existing organization users joined with a different email address, you must add them to the Control Hub organization again using their email address from AD DS.