How to add SSO with OpenID Connect

Availability

The Single-Sign-On capability is only available for customers on the Enterprise subscription. Check out the Unleash plans for details.

Introduction

In this guide we will do a deep dive on the Single-Sign-On (SSO) using the OpenID Connect protocol and connect it with Okta as IdP. Unleash supports other identity providers and protocols, have a look at all available Single-Sign-On options

Basic configuration

Step 1: Sign-in to Unleash

In order to configure SSO you will need to log in to the Unleash instance with a user that have "Admin" role. If you are self-hosting Unleash then a default user will be automatically created the first time you start Unleash:

• username: admin
• password: unleash4all

Step 2: Navigate to SSO configuration

Unleash enterprise supports multiple authentication providers, and we provide in depth guides for each of them. To find them navigate to "Admin" => "Single-Sign-On" section.

Step 3: Okta with OpenID Connect

Open a new tab/window in your browser and sign in to your Okta account. We will need to create a new Application which will hold the settings we need for Unleash.

a) Create new Okta application

Navigate to “Admin/Applications” and click the “Add Apps” button.

Then click “Create Application” and choose a new “OIDC - OpenID Connect” application, and choose application type "Web Application" and click create.

b) Configure Application Integration

Give you application a name. And set the Sign-in redirect URI to:

https://[region].app.unleash-hosted.com/[instanceName]/auth/oidc/callback

(In a self-hosted scenario the URL must match your UNLEASH_URL configuration)

You can also configure the optional Sign-out redirect URIs: https://[region].app.unleash-hosted.com/[instanceName]/

Save your new application and you will get the required details you need to configure the Unleash side of things:

c) Configure OpenID Connect provider in Unleash

Navigate to Unleash and insert the details (Discover URL, Client Id and Client Secret) into Unleash.

Please note that the Discover URL must be a valid URL and must include the https:// prefix. For example: https://dev-example-okta.com is a valid discovery URL.

You may also choose to “Auto-create users”. This will make Unleash automatically create new users on the fly the first time they sign-in to Unleash with the given SSO provider (JIT). If you decide to automatically create users in Unleash you must also provide a list of valid email domains. You must also decide which root Unleash role they will be assigned (Editor role will be the default).

Step 4: Verify

Log out of Unleash and sign back in again. You should now be presented with the "Sign in with OpenID Connect" option. Click the button and follow the sign-in flow. If all goes well you should be successfully signed in to Unleash.

(If something is not working you can still sign-in with username and password).

Success!

Configuration via Environment variables (Since Unleash Enterprise 6.1.0)

Beware, configuring OIDC through environment variables will disable editing settings in the Administration GUI. If you want to fallback to the GUI, make sure the OIDC_ENABLED is not set and then restart Unleash.

Step 1 Setup required variables for OIDC (minimal setup)

Variable name	Purpose	Required	Example values
OIDC_ENABLED	Tells Unleash to use environment variables for configuring OIDC	yes	true / false (false will turn off OIDC login)
OIDC_DISCOVER_URL	URL used to dynamically retrieve the OIDC configuration	yes	https://myoidchost.azure.com/.well-known/openid-configuration
OIDC_CLIENT_ID	The OIDC client ID of this application.	yes	FB87266D-CDDB-4BCF-BB1F-8392FD0EDC1B
OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET	Shared secret from OpenID server. Used to authenticate login requests	yes	qjcVfeFjEfoYAF3AEsX2IMUWYuUzAbXO

Once these are configured OIDC should be working.

Step 2 (optional) - Auto create users from specific email domains

Variable name	Purpose	Required	Example values
OIDC_AUTO_CREATE	Tells Unleash to auto create users from the specific domains in OIDC_AUTO_CREATE_EMAIL_DOMAINS	no	true / false
OIDC_AUTO_CREATE_EMAIL_DOMAINS	A comma separated list of domains to auto-create users for, if not set accepts all domains	no	getunleash.io,getunleash.ai

Step 3 (optional) Enable group syncing

Variable name	Purpose	Required	Example values
---------------------------	--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------	----------	-----------------
OIDC_ENABLE_GROUP_SYNCING	Tell Unleash to setup group syncing from OIDC login requests (defaults to false)	No	true or false
OIDC_GROUP_JSON_PATH	a json path expression telling where in the response Unleash can find the group membership information	No	groups
OIDC_ADD_GROUPS_SCOPE	Tells Unleash to add the groups access scope to the request (defaults to false)	No	true / false
OIDC_DEFAULT_ROOT_ROLE	Which role to grant users auto created from SSO, defaults to Viewer	No	'Viewer', 'Editor', 'Admin'

Step 4 (optional) - Further customizations

Variable name	Purpose	Required	Example values
OIDC_ACR_VALUES	Authentication Context Class Reference, used to request extra values in the acr claim returned from the server. If multiple values are required, they should be space separated.	no
OIDC_ID_TOKEN_SIGNING_ALGORITHM	Only use this if your provider is failing with unsupported algorithm, the default should be fine here	No	RS256, RS384, RS512
OIDC_ENABLE_SINGLE_SIGN_OUT	Should Unleash call the single signout of the OIDC endpoint (defaults to false)	No	true / false