SAML configuration reference - 8.2.0+ (old)

1. Intro

SAML authentication is based on the OneloginSamlBundle for Symfony. SuiteCRM provides a base configuration for the bundle. Therefore, most of the configuration will be similar to the one on the OneloginSamlBundle bundle.
For the moment the legacy SAML configurations are not taken into account.

2. Limitations

The current implementation does not support IdP initiated logout.
- When logging out the user directly in the IdP, it will not log them out of SuiteCRM and the user would need to be logged out from SuiteCRM manually.
Post binding to the logout service is not supported.

After a session timeout, the user may be re-directed to the native SuiteCRM login, instead of the SAML login. To overcome this, the user needs to clear the cookies and navigate again to the SuiteCRM URL of the specific instance.

This issue will be fixed in a future release.

4. Enabling SAML authentication

To enable SAML authentication change your .env.local and set:

AUTH_TYPE=saml

⚠️ After making a change to your .env.local please be sure to run ./bin/console cache:clear from root or Repair and Rebuild from the Admin Menu.

5. Connection configuration reference

SuiteCRM exposes some of OneloginSamlBundle’s configuration as env variables. The .env file has the default value for all the available variables. When configuring an instance, add the variables you want to override, to .env.local file.

Default .env SAML connection config

###> SAML CONFIG ###
SAML_USERNAME_ATTRIBUTE=uid
SAML_USE_ATTRIBUTE_FRIENDLY_NAME=true
###< SAML CONFIG ###

Base options description

SAML_USERNAME_ATTRIBUTE

The attribute from SAML to use as the user_name in SuiteCRM. The value received on the SAML request for the defined SAML_USERNAME_ATTRIBUTE needs to match the value on the user_name column of SuiteCRM’s users table.

Example:

You want to login with user jane.doe
The user_name on SuiteCRM’s users table is jane.doe

Then value set on SAML_USERNAME_ATTRIBUTE should be whatever property from the SAML request that provides the username jane.doe.

SAML_USE_ATTRIBUTE_FRIENDLY_NAME

If the friendly name sent on the SAML request should be used

Example

###> SAML CONFIG ###
SAML_USERNAME_ATTRIBUTE=username
SAML_USE_ATTRIBUTE_FRIENDLY_NAME=false
###< SAML CONFIG ###

Configuring SAML

As mentioned before, SuiteCRM is using the OneloginSamlBundle bundle. Hence, the configurations used are the same as the ones provided by the bundle.

For detailed information and options check the documentation on:

When adding the configurations to SuiteCRM you should add them to the /extensions/<your-extensions>/config folder. It is a good practice to replicate the same path where the original configuration lives within the core config folder. Thus, a good place to add this configuration is:

extensions/<your-extesion>/config/packages/hslavich_onelogin_saml.yaml
- e.g.: extensions/custom/config/packages/hslavich_onelogin_saml.yaml

Example and option description

The following configuration example was taken from an instance that was using keycloak as an IdP. Some of the IdP example values come from there, that does not mean that all IdPs use similar values.

The comments on the following example provide a description of expected values for some settings.

hslavich_onelogin_saml:
  # Basic settings

  idp:
    # entity id of your idp
    entityId: '<idp-entity-id>'  # e.g.: 'http://saml-idp-host/realms/master'


    singleSignOnService:
      # single sign on url your IdP
      url: '<idp-sso-url>' # e.g.: 'http://saml-idp-host/realms/master/protocol/saml'
      binding: 'urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-Redirect'

    singleLogoutService:
      # single logout service url of your IdP
      url: '<idp-slo-url>' # e.g.: 'http://saml-idp-host/realms/master/protocol/saml'
      binding: 'urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-Redirect'

    # IdP certificate
    x509cert: '<idp-certificate-string> # e.g. 'MIICmzCCAYMCBgGC1LTnr ... ='


  # The SP in this case is your SuiteCRM instance
  sp:

    # SP entity id. Use your SuiteCRM instance url
    entityId: '<sp-entity-id-use-suitecrm-url> # e.g. 'https://<your-suitecrm-instance>'

    assertionConsumerService:
      # The path to SuiteCRM's acs service
      url: 'https://<your-suitecrm-instance>/saml/acs'
      binding: 'urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-POST'

    singleLogoutService:
      # The path to SuiteCRM's SAML logout service
      url: 'https://<your-suitecrm-instance>/saml/logout'
      binding: 'urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-Redirect'

    # SuiteCRM's private key for SAML (sp)
    privateKey: '<sp-private-key>' # e.g. 'MIIEoAIBAAKCAQEAx ...'

    # SuiteCRM's certificate for SAML (sp)
    x509cert: '<sp-cert>' # e.g. 'MIIC1zCCAb8CBgGC1awPM ... ='


  # Optional settings

  # SuiteCRM's base url for SAML
  baseurl: 'https://<your-suitecrm-instance>/saml'

  ######
  # NOTE : The values for the following settings will depend on how the IdP is setup
  ######
  strict: true
  debug: true
  security:
    nameIdEncrypted: false
    authnRequestsSigned: true
    logoutRequestSigned: true
    logoutResponseSigned: false
    wantMessagesSigned: false
    wantAssertionsSigned: false
    wantNameIdEncrypted: false
    requestedAuthnContext: false
    signMetadata: false
    wantXMLValidation: true
    signatureAlgorithm: 'http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmldsig-more#rsa-sha256'
    digestAlgorithm: 'http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#sha256'
  contactPerson:
    technical:
      givenName: 'Tech User'
      emailAddress: 'techuser@example.com'
    support:
      givenName: 'Support User'
      emailAddress: 'supportuser@example.com'
  organization:
    en:
      name: 'Example'
      displayname: 'Example'
      url: 'http://example.com'

The above example does not use all the possible options. For information on all the options check the documentation on:

Configuring user auto creation

By default, user auto creation is disabled for SAML.

When disabled you will only be able to authenticate a user using SAML if you first create them on SuiteCRM.

The auto-create option will auto create the user from SAML if they do not exist on SuiteCRM yet.

Please note that this user will not have any password set on SuiteCRM and the external_auth_only is set to 1 (or true) by default.

To enable SAML user auto creation change your .env.local and set:

SAML_AUTO_CREATE=enabled

When enabling the user auto creation you also need to define how the user information from SAML should be mapped to the user in SuiteCRM

The default configuration for this mapping is defined on config/services/saml/saml.yaml.

To override the configurations you need to copy the file over to the extensions folder on a path like extensions/<your-package>/config/services/saml/saml.yaml

parameters:
  saml.autocreate.attributes_map:

Option description:

saml.autocreate.attributes_map

Defines how to map the SAML fields to the fields in the user. The keys are the field names in SAML and the values the field names in SuiteCRM. See example on next section.

Example

SAML saml.yaml

File: extensions/<your-package>/config/services/saml/saml.yaml

parameters:
  saml.autocreate.attributes_map:
    email: email1
    'urn:oid:2.5.4.4': last_name
    'urn:oid:2.5.4.42': first_name

To check the values sent from SAML IdP you can open logs/auth.log, which will have logs from the user creation process. This log is populated when you try to login. So, first try to login with a user that does not exist on the CRM and only then check the logs.

You should find an entry with the message App\Security\Saml\AppSamlUserFactory | createUser attributes. This entry should also contain a json with the attributes that SuiteCRM receives from the IdP.

By having a look at the following snippet from the log you can see that:

The last name Doe is sent on an attribute with key urn:oid:2.5.4.4
The first name Jeremy is sent on an attribute with key urn:oid:2.5.4.42
The email jeremy.doe@example.com is sent on an attribute with key email

Exactly like the ones used on the example given before.

[2022-09-15 09:23:53] auth.INFO: App\Security\Saml\AppSamlUserFactory | createUser username: jeremy.doe [] []
[2022-09-15 09:23:53] auth.INFO: App\Security\Saml\AppSamlUserFactory | createUser attributes | {"urn:oid:2.5.4.4":["Doe"],"urn:oid:2.5.4.42":["Jeremy"],"username":["jeremy.doe"],"email":["jeremy.doe@example.com"],"Role":["view-profile","offline_access","manage-account","manage-account-links","uma_authorization","default-roles-master"]} [] []

6. Allowing fallback to native authentication

SuiteCRM allows to fallback to native authentication using the password set on the SuiteCRM instance for that user.

To use the native logging go to: https://<your-suitecrm-instance>/auth.

After successfully logging in, the user is re-directed to the SuiteCRM’s instance base path, https://<your-suitecrm-instance>/.

Please note that the logout will re-direct you to the SAML login page and not to the SuiteCRM’s native login page.

external_auth_only config

The ability to login into SuiteCRM using the native login will depend on the value for the external_auth_only set on the user’s record:

If a user has external_auth_only set to 1 (or true), the user will not be able to log in using the native login.

On the other hand, if a user has external_auth_only set to 0 (or false) the user will be able to attempt to log in, assuming that he has a password set on the SuiteCRM instance.

7. Using Symfony Secrets

Please consider using symfony secrets for storing sensitive information, like certs, public/private keys, etc.

See the Using Symfony Secrets guide for more information on how to add them.

8. More information

For more information about options on SAML see the documentation for the onelogin bundle and lib being used:

Please make sure to read the documentation of the Symfony version used on your version of SuiteCRM