SAML with EntraID (Azure AD)

The following example assumes your Knocknoc instance is located at https://demo.knoc.cloud. Wherever you see that, please substitute it for your own instance URL.

Setting Up the IdP

Create an Application

1. Navigate to the Microsoft Entra admin center and login with administrator credentials.
2. Go to Identity and select Applications than Enterprise Applications
   
3. Click New Application
4. Click Create your own application.
5. Type a name for your application (e.g  knocknoc)
6. Check "Integrate any other application you don't find in the gallery (Non-gallery)"
7. Click Create.

Assign Groups

1. Click "Assign users and groups"
2. Click "None Selected" under groups.
3. Add the user groups you wish to access Knocknoc protected services.
   

Note: for automatic user assignment, you must add groups into Knocknoc admin using matching Entra object IDs (e.g. 6a696eec-482f-4b40-97c8-9ea3dba8ac3a) as their names. We recommend you add a friendly name in the description field. Best practice is to have at least one group per Knocknoc protected service.

SAML Configuration

1. Click Set up single sign on.
2. Click SAML.
3. In the Basic SAML section, add the links to your Knocknoc instance.
   1. Set the Indentifier (Entity ID) to https://demo.knoc.cloud/api/saml/metadata
      
   2. Set the Reply URL (Assertion Consumer Service URL) to https://demo.knoc.cloud/api/saml/acs
   3. Leave the Optional Basic SAML Configuration options blank at this stage and click Save.
4. In the Attributes & Claims section
   1. Update the Required Claim, changing the Name Identifier Format to Persistent
      
      
   2. Remove all other Claims.
   3. Add a group Claim.
      1. Select Security Groups
      2. Select Group ID for the Source Attribute. 
      3. Check "Customize the name of the group claim" Under Advanced Options
      4. Add the Name as, groups.
      5. Click save when done.
         
         
   4. Add in a New Claim
      1. Set the Name as "realName".
      2. Leave Source as Attribute.
      3. Set Source Attribute to "user.displayname".

          

         
         
   5. Add another New Claim
      1. Set the Name as "sessionDuration"
      2. Leave Source as Attribute.
      3. Set Source Attribute to the default login duration in seconds for users logging in to Knocknoc. You can manually override this with a user attribute later for specific users.
      4. This is a whole number, eg: 480. Do not add the quotation marks as Entra displays in the image below!
      5. 
         
   6. Add a third New Claim
      1. Set the Name as "username"
      2. Leave Source as Attribute.
      3. Set Source Attribute "user.userprincipalname"
         
         
5. Copy the App Federation Metadata Url and save it, you will need it in the next step configuring Knocknoc.

   

6. Now configure Knocknoc.
   

Knocknoc SAML Config

Knocknoc supports SAML for Users and/or for Administrators. Initially we suggest configuring SAML for Users, and once confirmed as working extending this to the Administrator users, whilst retaining a break-glass local Admin user for emergencies or broken SAML situations.

1. Login In the Knocknoc admin interface.
2. Click on Settings on the left.
   
3. For the "Metadata URL", paste in the "App Federation Metadata Url" you previously saved. It starts with https://login.microsoftonline.com/...
   
4. Click "Generate new keypair"
   1. You are OK to save.
   2. If instead of creating keys on the Knocknoc server, and you want to create keys manually, follow the below steps:
      1. On your local machine: generate a new certificate and key, this can be done on a Linux host using the below command.
         openssl req -new -x509 -days 3650 -nodes -subj /CN=Knocknoc/ -out user-demo-knoc-cloud.crt -keyout user-demo-knoc-cloud.key
         
      2. Upload the key/cert in the relevant locations in Knocknoc.
      3. You do not need to do the above unless you want to create the keypair off the Knocknoc server on a local machine or HSM etc for improved entropy/randomness or otherwise execute in an isolated/controlled environment!
         
5. Click Save.

Final Testing

Assuming you granted your own user permission to one or more Knocknoc groups in EntraID, you should now be able to login to Knocknoc using SSO.

1. Browse to https://demo.knoc.cloud
2. There should now be an "SSO Login" button.
3. Click this, if you are not already authenticated to your IdP you should now be directed to the IdP login page. Note: If you are already authenticated you'll simply be redirected to an authenticated Knocknoc session.
4. If ACLs have already been added you should also see these now say Granted.

You can also test using the Entra testing tool which is in Step 5 of the Entra configuration, shown below. Remember you will need to log in with a User or Group you granted access previously.

If this all works, congratulations! You've successfully run the SAML gauntlet.

Now it is time to create ACLs and assign them to the Entra SAML Groups.

Entra Groups

Entra passes Group information through SAML using the Group GUID.

To obtain this for a particular group, view the Group in the Entra Admin portal.

The relevant GUID is then placed as the Group Name in Knocknoc, which will be matched automatically and assign the Group Users, to the Knocknoc ACL.

Explicitly assigned groups (performance/security)

For additional security or large environments with many groups (end user login performance) - you can explicitly only pass/permit groups that have been a) assigned to the user AND b) assigned to the Enterprise Application.

To do this, adjust the groups to be "groups assigned to the application", as below: