Duo Single Sign-On for Palo Alto Prisma

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.

About Duo Single Sign-On

Duo Single Sign-On is our cloud-hosted SSO product which layers Duo's strong authentication and flexible policy engine on top of Palo Alto Prisma logins. Duo Single Sign-On acts as an identity provider (IdP), authenticating your users using existing on-premises Active Directory (AD) or another SSO IdP. Duo SSO prompts users for two-factor authentication and performs endpoint assessment and verification before permitting access to Palo Alto Prisma.

Duo Single Sign-On is available in 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 Palo Alto Prisma. Duo checks the user, device, and network against an application's policy before allowing access to the application.

Configure Single Sign-On

Before configuring Palo Alto Prisma with Duo SSO using Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) 2.0 authentication you'll first need to enable Duo Single Sign-On for your Duo account and configure a working authentication source.

Once you have your SSO authentication source working, continue to the next step of creating the Palo Alto Prisma application in Duo.

Create the Palo Alto Prisma 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 Palo Alto Prisma with a protection type of "2FA with SSO hosted by Duo (Single Sign-On)" in the applications list. Click Protect to the far-right to start configuring Palo Alto Prisma. See Protecting Applications for more information about protecting applications in Duo and additional application options. You'll need the information on the Palo Alto Prisma page under Downloads later.

3. Palo Alto Prisma uses the Mail attribute, First name attribute, and Last name attribute when authenticating. We've mapped the bridge attributes to Duo Single Sign-On supported authentication source attributes as follows:

   Bridge Attribute	Active Directory	SAML IdP
   <Email Address>	mail	Email
   <First Name>	givenName	FirstName
   <Last Name>	sn	LastName

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

4. 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.

5. Keep the Duo Admin Panel tab open. You will come back to it later.

Duo Universal Prompt

The Duo Universal Prompt provides a simplified and accessible Duo login experience for web-based applications, offering a redesigned visual interface with security and usability enhancements.

Universal Prompt	Traditional Prompt

We've already updated the Duo Palo Alto Prisma application hosted in Duo's service to support the Universal Prompt, so there's no action required on your part to update the application itself. If you created your Palo Alto Prisma application before March 2024, you can activate the Universal Prompt experience for users from the Duo Admin Panel. Palo Alto Prisma applications created after March 2024 have the Universal Prompt activated by default.

If you created your Palo Alto Prisma application before March 2024, it's a good idea to read the Universal Prompt Update Guide for more information, about the update process and the new login experience for users, before you activate the Universal Prompt for your application.

Activate Universal Prompt

Activation of the Universal Prompt is a per-application change. Activating it for one application does not change the login experience for your other Duo applications.

The "Universal Prompt" area of the application details page shows that this application is "Ready to activate", with these activation control options:

• Show traditional prompt: Your users experience Duo's traditional prompt via redirect when logging in to this application.
• Show new Universal Prompt: (Default) Your users experience the Universal Prompt via redirect when logging in to this application.

The application's Universal Prompt status shows "Activation complete" here and on the Universal Prompt Update Progress report.

Should you ever want to roll back to the traditional prompt, you can return to this setting and change it back to Show traditional prompt. However, this will still deliver the Duo prompt via redirect, not in an iframe. Keep in mind that support for the traditional Duo prompt ended for the majority of applications in March 2024.

Universal Update Progress

Click the See Update Progress link to view the Universal Prompt Update Progress report. This report shows the update availability and migration progress for all your Duo applications. You can also activate the new prompt experience for multiple supported applications from the report page instead of visiting the individual details pages for each application.

Enable Palo Alto Prisma for SSO

1. Log into your Palo Alto Prisma account as an administrator.

2. In the upper right corner of the page, click Settings.

3. In the left menu sidebar, click Access Control. The "Access Control" page opens.

4. Click the SSO tab. The "SSO Settings" page opens.

5. Scroll down and click SAML.

6. Click the Enabled toggle switch.

7. Copy the Audience URI (SP Entity ID) and paste it into the Duo Admin Panel Audience URI (SP Entity ID) field, under "Service Provider".

8. Return to the Palo Alto Prisma "SSO Settings" page. In the web address bar, copy the ACS URL and paste it into the Duo Admin Panel Assertion Consumer Service (ACS) URL field.

   Example: If the URL in the web address bar is https://app.prismacloud.io/settings/access_control/sso, the ACS URL is https://app.prismacloud.io/.

9. In the Duo Admin Panel, in the Assertion Consumer Service (ACS) URL field, replace app with api and add saml at the end.

   Example: If the ACS URL is https://app.prismacloud.io/, then the edited ACS URL would be https://api.prismacloud.io/saml. See the image below.

   

10. Under "Metadata", copy the Identity Provider Issuer URL and paste it into the Palo Alto Prisma Identity Provider Issuer field, on the "SSO Settings" page.

    

11. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Under "Downloads", click Copy certificate. Paste the copied certificate file text, including the -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- and -----END CERTIFICATE----- lines, into the Palo Alto Prisma Certificate field.

12. Click Save.

13. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save.

Group Mapping

You have the option to map Duo groups to different roles in Palo Alto Prisma. To map Duo groups, do the following:

1. Log into your Palo Alto Prisma account as an administrator.

2. In the upper right corner of the page, click Settings.

3. In the left menu sidebar, click Access Control. The "Access Control" page opens.

4. Click the SSO tab. The "SSO Settings" page opens.

5. Scroll down to the "Just in Time (JIT) Provisioning" section. Click the Enabled toggle switch.

6. Click Save.

7. On the "Access Control" page, click the Roles tab.

8. In the Name column, copy the role you want to map to Duo Groups and paste it into the Duo Admin Panel Prisma Cloud Roles field.

9. In the Duo Admin Panel, click the Duo groups drop-down menu and select the applicable Duo group.

   

10. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save.

Bypass SSO

You have the option to select users to bypass SSO in Palo Alto Prisma. To select users to bypass SSO, do the following:

1. Log into your Palo Alto Prisma account as an administrator.

2. In the upper right corner of the page, click Settings.

3. In the left menu sidebar, click Access Control. The "Access Control" page opens.

4. Click the SSO tab. The "SSO Settings" page opens.

5. In the "Direct User Authentication" section, click the Users (Optional) drop-down menu.

6. Click the checkbox next to each user you want to bypass SSO. These users will use their email and password to log in.

7. Click Save.

Learn more about Palo Alto Prisma SSO at Palo Alto Tech Docs.

Add a Tile to Duo Central

Duo Central is our cloud-hosted portal which allows users to access all of their applications in one spot. Palo Alto Prisma requires IdP-initiated sign-on, so you must add an application tile in Duo Central for your users to access the application using SSO. To add a tile for Palo Alto Prisma to Duo Central, do the following:

1. In the Duo Admin Panel, navigate to Single Sign-On → Duo Central.

2. If you have not already enabled Duo Central, review the information on the page and click Get Started. Complete the initial Duo Central configuration before proceeding to the next step.

3. Click Add tile and then click Add application tile.

4. Click the checkbox next to "Palo Alto Prisma - Single Sign-On".

5. Click Add tile.

See Duo Central to learn more about adding an application tile.

Using SSO

Log into Duo Central with your custom URL, and then click the Palo Alto Prisma - Single Sign-On tile to be redirected to Duo Single Sign-On to begin authentication.

If you do not know your Duo Central custom URL, you can find it in the Duo Admin Panel by navigating to Single Sign-On → Duo Central. In the upper right corner of the page, click your Duo Central custom URL to access the Palo Alto Prisma tile.

Active Directory Login

With Active Directory as the Duo SSO authentication source, enter the primary username (email address) on the Duo SSO login page and click or tap Next.

Enter the AD primary password and click or tap Log in to continue.

Enable Duo Passwordless to log in to Duo SSO backed by Active Directory authentication without entering a password in the future.

SAML Login

With another SAML identity provider as the Duo SSO authentication source, Duo SSO immediately redirects the login attempt to that SAML IdP for primary authentication. Users do not see the Duo SSO primary login screen.

Duo Authentication

Successful verification of your primary credentials by Active Directory or a SAML IdP redirects back to Duo. Complete Duo two-factor authentication when prompted and then you'll return to Palo Alto Prisma to complete the login process.

* Universal Prompt experience shown.

Congratulations! Your Palo Alto Prisma users now authenticate using Duo Single Sign-On.

See the full user login experience, including expired password reset (available for Active Directory authentication sources) in the Duo End User Guide for SSO.

Enable Remembered Devices

To minimize additional Duo two-factor prompts when switching between Palo Alto Prisma and your other Duo Single Sign-On SAML applications, be sure to apply a shared "Remembered Devices" policy to your SAML applications.

Troubleshooting

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