Duo Protection for Atlassian Cloud with Duo Access Gateway

Protecting Atlassian Cloud requires a subscription to Atlassian Access. Create and configure an Atlassian Access account before continuing.

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.

Duo Access Gateway

Duo Access Gateway (DAG), our on-premises SSO product, layers Duo's strong authentication and flexible policy engine on top of Atlassian Cloud logins using the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) 2.0 authentication standard. Duo Access Gateway acts as an identity provider (IdP), authenticating your users using existing on-premises or cloud-based directory credentials and prompting for two-factor authentication before permitting access to Atlassian Cloud.

Duo Access Gateway is included in the 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 Atlassian Cloud. Duo checks the user, device, and network against an application's policy before allowing access to the application.

Deploy or Update Duo Access Gateway

1. Install Duo Access Gateway on a server in your DMZ. Follow our instructions for deploying the server, configuring DAG settings, and adding your primary authentication source.

2. Add the attributes from the table below that correspond to the Duo attributes Mail attribute, Username attribute, Last name attribute, and First name attribute in the "Attributes" field when configuring your Active Directory or OpenLDAP authentication source in the DAG admin console, separated by a comma. For example, if Active Directory is your authentication source, enter mail,sAMAccountName,sn,givenName in the "Attributes" field.

   Duo Attribute	Active Directory	OpenLDAP
   Mail attribute	mail	mail
   First name attribute	givenName	gn
   Last name attribute	sn	sn
   Username attribute	sAMAccountName	uid

   If your organization uses other directory attributes than the ones listed here then enter those attribute names instead. If you've already configured the attributes list for another cloud service provider, append the additional attributes not already present to the list, separated by a comma.

3. After completing the initial DAG configuration steps, click Applications on the left side of the Duo Access Gateway admin console.

4. Scroll down the Applications page to the Metadata section. This is the information you need to provide to Atlassian Cloud when configuring SSO. Click the Download Certificate link to obtain the token signing certificate (the downloaded file is named "dag.crt").

   

Configure Atlassian Cloud SSO

Add the Duo Access Gateway as a new single sign-on provider for Atlassian Cloud.

1. While logged into Atlassian Cloud as an administrator click SAML single sign-on under "Atlassian Access".

2. On the "SAML single sign-on" page click Add SAML configuration. A new page will appear.

3. Copy the Entity ID information from the Duo Access Gateway admin console Metadata display and paste it into the Atlassian Cloud Identity provider Entity ID field.

   Example: https://yourserver.example.com/dag/saml2/idp/metadata.php

4. Copy the SSO URL information from the Duo Access Gateway admin console Metadata display and paste it into the Atlassian Cloud Identity provider SSO URL field.

   Example: https://yourserver.example.com/dag/saml2/idp/SSOService.php

5. The Public x509 certificate is the DAG Metadata certificate supplied by Duo Access Gateway. Open the dag.crt file in a text editor (like Notepad), and copy the entire contents of the file (including the -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- and -----END CERTIFICATE----- lines). Paste the certificate file text into this field.

6. Click Save configuration. You’ll return to the "SAML single sign-on" page with more options.

   

7. Locate SP Entity ID and copy everything after https://auth.atlassian.com/saml. If your SP Entity ID was "https://auth.atlassian.com/saml/a12345b6-cd78-9ef0-ghij-k1l234567890" you would copy "a12345b6-cd78-9ef0-ghij-k1l234567890". You'll need this information later.

   

Learn more about Atlassian Cloud SSO at Atlassian Cloud Support.

Create the Atlassian Cloud Application in Duo

1. Log on to the Duo Admin Panel and navigate to Applications.

2. Click Protect an Application and locate the entry for Atlassian Cloud with a protection type of "2FA with SSO self-hosted (Duo Access Gateway)" in the applications list. Click Protect to the far-right to start configuring Atlassian Cloud. See Protecting Applications for more information about protecting applications in Duo and additional application options.

3. Enter the subdomain used when logging into your company’s Atlassian Cloud account as the Atlassian Cloud Subdomain. For example, if your Atlassian Cloud login URL is https://yourdomain.atlassian.net then enter yourdomain.

4. Enter the data you copied earlier from the Atlassian Cloud "SP Entity ID" into the Atlassian Cloud Account Number.

5. Optional: If you'd like to hide the Atlassian Cloud tile that will take you to the Atlassian Cloud homepage from the Duo Access Gateway Launcher page and add your own links, check the box next to Hide Atlassian Cloud Launcher Tile. You can read more about adding Atlassian Cloud bookmarks later in this page.

6. Atlassian Cloud uses the Mail attribute, Username attribute, First name attribute, and Last name attribute when authenticating. We've mapped those to DAG supported authentication source attributes as follows:

   Duo Attribute	Active Directory	OpenLDAP	SAML IdP	Google	Azure
   Mail attribute	mail	mail	mail	email	mail
   Username attribute	sAMAccountName	uid	sAMAccountName	mail	mail
   First name attribute	givenName	gn	givenName	given_name	givenName
   Last name attribute	sn	sn	sn	family_name	surname

   If you are using non-standard attributes for your authentication source, check the Custom attributes box and enter the names of the attributes you wish to use instead.

7. Click Save Configuration to generate a downloadable configuration file.

   

8. 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 — or come back and change the application's policies and settings after you finish SSO setup. If you do update any settings, click the Save Changes button when done.

9. Click the Download your configuration file link to obtain the Atlassian Cloud application settings (as a JSON file).

   Important: This file contains information that uniquely identifies this application to Duo. Secure this file as you would any other sensitive or password information. Don't share it with unauthorized individuals or email it to anyone under any circumstances!

Add the Atlassian Cloud Application to Duo Access Gateway

Before you do this, verify that you updated the "Attributes" list for your Duo Access Gateway authentication source as specified here.

1. Return to the Applications page of the DAG admin console session.

2. Click the Choose File button in the "Add Application" section of the page and locate the Atlassian Cloud SAML application JSON file you downloaded from the Duo Admin Panel earlier. Click the Upload button after selecting the JSON configuration file.

3. The Atlassian Cloud SAML application is added.

   

Create Atlassian Cloud Bookmarks

If you selected "Hide Atlassian Cloud Launcher Tile" as an option when configuring Atlassian Cloud in the Duo Admin Panel, the tile will not be shown to users. You can create individual bookmarks in the Duo Access Gateway which can take users directly to each Atlassian Cloud service.

1. Return to your Atlassian Cloud account. Navigate to an Atlassian Cloud service that you'd like to create as a bookmark.

2. Go to the "Settings" page for the service such as Jira or Confluence. Locate the "System" or "General Configuration" page.

3. Copy the Base URL from this page. An example might look like https://yourdomain.atlassian.net/wiki. Save this as you will use it later.

4. Return to the Applications page of the DAG admin console session.

5. Locate the "Atlassian Cloud" application and copy the Login URL (it looks like https://yourserver.example.com/dag/saml2/idp/SSOService.php?spentityid=https://auth.atlassian.com/saml/a12345b6-cd78-9ef0-ghij-k1l234567890). Save this as you will use it later.

   

6. Navigate to Launcher on the left-hand side of the DAG admin console.

7. Scroll down to "Bookmarks" and click Add a Bookmark. A new window will appear.

8. Type the name you'd like displayed on the tile in the Name field.

9. In the URL field you will take the information we copied above and create a new URL.

   1. First paste the Login URL you copied from the DAG admin console (Example: https://yourserver.example.com/dag/saml2/idp/SSOService.php?spentityid=https://auth.atlassian.com/saml/a12345b6-cd78-9ef0-ghij-k1l234567890).

   2. At the end of the URL type &RelayState= (Example: https://yourserver.example.com/dag/saml2/idp/SSOService.php?spentityid=https://auth.atlassian.com/saml/a12345b6-cd78-9ef0-ghij-k1l234567890&RelayState=)

   3. Finally, at the end of the URL paste the Base URL from that Atlassian service you'd like to redirect to after login. (Example: https://yourserver.example.com/dag/saml2/idp/SSOService.php?spentityid=https://auth.atlassian.com/saml/a12345b6-cd78-9ef0-ghij-k1l234567890&RelayState=https://yourdomain.atlassian.net/wiki)

10. Optional: Under Logo you can choose a PNG file less than 200 KB. This logo is shown to end users in the launcher.

11. By default, all users will be able to see the new bookmark. Restrict this to members of certain Duo groups by checking the Show this bookmark to only certain groups of users box under "Groups" and then selecting which Duo groups to show this application bookmark.

12. Click Save. You can repeat these steps to add more bookmarks for other Atlassian Cloud services.

    

Verify SSO

If your organization enabled the Duo Access Gateway portal, log into the portal page using the link provided by your administrator. Click Atlassian Cloud or the bookmarks you added earlier from the dashboard to access the application.

You can also log on to Atlassian Cloud by going to the URLs of any of your Atlassian Cloud services, typing in your e-mail address, and clicking Continue. This redirects you to the Duo Access Gateway login page. Enter your primary directory logon information, approve Duo two-factor authentication, and get redirected back to the Atlassian Cloud site after authenticating.

Congratulations! Your Atlassian Cloud users now authenticate using Duo Access Gateway.

Microsoft AD FS

Microsoft's Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) is a popular choice for SSO because it easily integrates with the AD identity store many organizations already have deployed. Duo's support for cloud applications and SSO drops in to an existing AD FS installation to provide secondary authentication after a user passes primary authentication (successful Active Directory logon).

If you don't already have AD federation running the first step is to install and configure Microsoft AD FS in your organization. Deployment Guides for AD FS versions 2.1, and 3.0/4.0 are available from Microsoft.

Once your AD FS services are up and running, the second step is to configure the SSO partnership between your AD FS service and the external cloud resource, in this case Atlassian Cloud. Learn more about configuring Atlassian Cloud SSO with AD FS at the Atlassian Cloud Support site.

After you have successfully configured and tested AD FS SSO login to Atlassian Cloud using your AD domain credentials, you can then install the Duo AD FS integration. AD FS protection is included with Duo's paid plans.

With the Duo integration for AD FS installed, users pass primary authentication to the AD FS service as usual. Once primary authentication succeeds, users are forwarded to the Duo service for secondary authentication. After approving logon using one of Duo's authentication methods, the user is fully logged in to Atlassian Cloud.

Other Identity Partners

Using a third-party SSO provider for cloud application access? Duo partners with leading cloud SSO providers like Okta and OneLogin to secure access with our strong and flexible authentication platform.

You can also use Duo two-factor authentication with CAS and Shibboleth on-premises IdPs.

Troubleshooting

Need some help? Try searching our Knowledge Base articles or Community discussions. For further assistance, contact Support.