Implementing single sign-on in Studio Server using Amazon Cognito with an external SAML identity provider

This step consists of creating a user pool and defining a domain name.

Step 1. On the AWS Management Console page, enter Cognito in the Find Services list and click the found result.

The Amazon Cognito page appears.

Step 2. Click Manage User Pools.

The User Pools page appears.

Step 3. In the top right corner, click Create a users pool.

Setting up a users pool involves various steps. Each step has its own page. Refer to the navigation menu on the left side of the page.

• Name. Enter a pool name and click Step through settings.

• Attributes. Use this page to set up how you want your end users to sign in. When done, click Next step.

• Set up the following pages as required:
• Policies
• MFA and verifications
• Message customizations
• Tags
• Devices
• Triggers

For more information about these pages, see the Amazon documentation.

• App clients. Click Add an app client, add a name and set the other options to your needs. When done, click Create app client:

• Review. Review your settings and click Create pool.

Step 4. In the menu under App integration, click Domain name and follow the instructions on the page. When done, click Save changes.

Here, Microsoft Azure Active Director is used.

Step 1. Open the Azure Portal and navigate to Azure Active Directory.

Step 2. Go to Enterprise Applications and choose New application followed by Non-gallery application and give the application a name. Click Add to create the new application.

Step 3. In the newly created App, choose Single sign-on, followed by SAML.

Step 4. Edit the options as follows. When finished, click Save.

• Identifier: The ID of the Cognito user pool. Get this by accessing the General settings of your Cognito user pool. Enter it in the following format:

urn:amazon:cognito:sp:<AWS Cognito user pool ID>

• Reply URL: The Cognito Domain URL. Get this in the Domain name section of your Cognito user pool. Enter it in the following format:

<AWS Cognito Domain URL>/saml2/idpresponse

Step 5. Go to the next step 2 User Attributes & Claims. Add a new claim with the following settings. Leave all other claims as-is. When done, click Save.

• Name: roles
• Namespace: leave empty
• Source attribute: user.assignedroles

Step 6. In the SAML settings, go to step 3 SAML Signing Certificate and click Download for the option Federation Metadata XML. Save the file somewhere on your system, it is needed later in the process.

Step 1. In Cognito, go to Federation > Identity Providers > SAML. Upload the previously downloaded XML file and add a name. When done, click Create provider.

Step 2. Click Configure attribute mapping and set up the following configuration. When done click Save changes.

Step 3. Go to App integration > App client settings and make the following changes. When finished click Save changes.

• Enabled Identity Provider: select Azure-AD (the name that was used in step 1).

• Sign in and sign out URLs:
• Callback URL: This URL consists of 2 parts: the URL of Studio Server followed by /idpcallback.php

Example: https://studio-server.mycompany.com/idpcallback.php

Note: Make sure to check if you are pointing to the directory of Studio Server in your Web server which actually includes the idpcallback.php file.

• Sign out URL: The URL of your Studio Server.

Tip: Concatenate multiple URLs by separating them with a comma.

• OAuth 2.0:
• Allowed OAuth Flows: select Authorization code grant.
• Allowed OAuth Scopes: select all options:
• phone
• email
• openid
• aws.cognito.signin.user.admin
• profile

Step 1. In Azure, go to App registrations, choose the previously created App. In the menu, choose Manifest.

Step 2. In the appRoles section, add the following JSON. Verify each property and configure it to your needs. When done, click Save.

{
    "allowedMemberTypes": [
        "User"
    ],
    "description": "Designers role",
    "displayName": "Designers",
    "id": "YOUR GUID HERE",
    "isEnabled": true,
    "lang": null,
    "origin": "Application",
    "value": "Designers"
},
{
    "allowedMemberTypes": [
        "User"
    ],
    "description": "Editors role",
    "displayName": "Editors",
    "id": "YOUR GUID HERE",
    "isEnabled": true,
    "lang": null,
    "origin": "Application",
    "value": "Editors"
},

Step 3. Assign the role to an Active Directory user or group by doing the following:

Note: When no users exist yet, create these first.

1. Go to Enterprise Applications > your App > Users and groups.
2. Choose Add user.
3. Select Users and groups, select one or multiple users or groups and click Select.
4. Click Select Role, select one of the previously created roles and then click Assign.
5. Repeat these steps to assign additional roles.

In Studio Server, a connection to the Enterprise application in Cognito needs to be configured.

For this, we need information from Cognito.

Step 1. In Cognito, do the following:

• Under General settings, click App clients followed by Show details. Note down the App client id and the App client secret.

Step 2. In Studio Server, add and configure the following settings in the config_overrule.php file:

• OPENID_ISSUER_URL. The main URL of your Cognito account has a fixed format:

Format: https://cognito-idp.region.amazonaws.com/userPoolId

• OPENID_CLIENT_ID. The client ID as copied in step 1.

• OPENID_CLIENT_SECRET. The App client secret as copied in step 1

• OPENID_SCOPES. Unlike Okta, Cognito only uses the scopes 'openid profile email'.

Test the implementation by logging in to Studio Server using the various applications:

• The Studio Server Maintenance pages
• Studio
• Studio for InDesign and InCopy

Test the scenario where the user is not yet logged in to Cognito and where the user is already logged in to Cognito. Follow the steps on screen.