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Configure Google for SSO in your CrashPlan environment

Updated

This article applies to CrashPlan Professional, Enterprise, and MSPs.png

Overview

This tutorial explains how to configure your CrashPlan cloud environment to use single sign-on (SSO) with Google. This article applies to environments in the CrashPlan cloud only. 

This article assumes you are already familiar with SSO and the SAML standard. For more information about how CrashPlan implements SSO, see our Introduction to single sign-on .

Compatible CrashPlan components

Compatible with SSO
  • CrashPlan app for Windows, Mac, and Linux
  • CrashPlan console

Considerations

External authentication systems
Our technical support engineers can help with authentication issues caused by interaction with CrashPlan products. However, troubleshooting authentication issues outside your CrashPlan environment is beyond the scope of our technical support team. For assistance with external authentication systems, contact your authentication vendor.
  • To use this functionality, you must be assigned the Identity Management Administrator role. 
  • CrashPlan usernames must match SSO usernames. How you accomplish this depends on how you deploy CrashPlan apps.
  • CrashPlan supports service provider-initiated SSO but does not support identity provider-initiated SSO. Therefore, users cannot sign in to your CrashPlan environment from the identity provider's website or application, but instead must log in using a browser bookmark. 
  • SSO provides user authentication but does not provide user management. Set up SCIM provisioning or use the CrashPlan console to manage users. 
  • CrashPlan does not support Single Logout (SLO). Users must sign out of the identity provider to end their single sign-on session.
  • The CrashPlan console expects SAML assertions to be signed. To configure CrashPlan to support advanced SAML request configurations, see Set SAML attributes for SSO in CrashPlan.

Before you begin

Verify network connectivity

Configure your private network, Internet, and VPN settings to allow client devices to communicate with your identity provider on ports 80 and 443. Test client connectivity to the identity provider before you proceed.

Determine whether you need to configure multiple CrashPlan tenants

Before you begin configuring SSO for CrashPlan, consider whether your company has more than one CrashPlan tenant that you need to connect to your SSO identity provider. Large companies and organizations often have separate, dedicated CrashPlan cloud instances (or "tenants") in use by different groups or departments. 

If you have more than one CrashPlan tenant to connect to your SSO identity provider, you need to obtain an entity ID URL for each CrashPlan tenant. An entity ID is a unique string that identifies a specific tenant to your SSO identity provider. The tenant-specific entity ID URL is composed of the CrashPlan domain followed by the tenant ID, and can be found in the CrashPlan service provider metadata URL file in each tenant. For example:

"entityId": "https://example.com/42424daa-424c-4e42-42c4-c424242420d4"

Step 1: Determine the URLs for your CrashPlan environment

When you configure an identity provider to connect to CrashPlan, typically you must provide the CrashPlan server login URL, entity ID, and Assertion Consumer Service (ACS) URL. To obtain these values: 

  1. Sign in to the CrashPlan console.
  2. Navigate to Administration > Integrations > Identity Management.
  3. Locate the CrashPlan service provider metadata URL:
    • When setting up an authentication provider for the first time, the URL appears on the main screen:
      identity management service provider metadata.png
    • If you previously set up an authentication provider, the URL appears in the authentication provider details:
      Identity Management Already Configured Metadata.png
       
  4. The first portion of the URL is your CrashPlan server URL, for example, https://example.com. Record this URL for use later.
    To determine the login URL, add /login to the end. For example, https://example.com/login.
  5. Copy the CrashPlan service provider metadata URL and paste it in the address bar of a new browser window. 
    Your CrashPlan environment's metadata details appear. 

     Metadata displays incorrectly in Safari

    The Crashplan service provider metadata page will not load correctly in Apple's Safari browser. Paste the metadata URL into the address bar of an alternative browser to view the correct output before you continue.

  6. Find the entityID. Record this URL for use later.
    obtain_entity_id_with_tenant_id_final.png
  7. Find the AssertionConsumerService and its Location URL value, for example, Location="https://example.com/api/SsoAuthLoginResponse". Record this URL for use later.
    ACS_URL_new.png

Step 2: Add the SAML app in Google

Perform the following steps to set up a custom SAML app in Google to connect to CrashPlan. For general information about setting up a custom SAML app, see Google's documentation.

  1. Sign in to the Google Admin console.
  2. Select Apps > SAML apps.
  3. Select Add app > Add custom SAML app.
  4. Enter an App name and click Continue.
  5. Click Download Metadata, save the file for use in Step 3 below, and click Continue.
  6. On the Service provider details page, complete the fields with values you obtained in Step 1. For example::
    • ACS URL: https://example.com/api/SsoAuthLoginResponse 
    • Entity ID: https://example.com 
    • Start URL: https://example.com/login 
  7. Leave Signed response unchecked and click Continue.
  8. On the Attributes page, click Add mapping and add the following mappings:
    • Primary email > uid
    • First name > givenName
    • Last name > sn
    • Primary email > mail
  9. Click Finish.
    Details of the SAML are displayed.
  10. Click User access and turn on the service for a test group.
    Test with a group first before turning on the service for all users. For more information, see Google's documentation.

Step 3: Add Google as an authentication provider

  1. Sign in to the CrashPlan console.
  2. Navigate to Administration > Integrations > Identity Management.
  3. Click Add Authentication Provider.
  4. In Display name, enter an identity provider name to display to users that sign in with SSO.
    If your CrashPlan environment provides more than one SSO identity provider, users see a list of providers to choose from. They must select the provider configured for their CrashPlan organization.
  5. In Provider's metadata, select Upload file, click Select a file, and select the metadata file you downloaded in Step 2.
  6. Click Create provider.
    Authentication provider settings appear.
    identity management authentication provider.png
Provider information message

Note the following message on the dialog:
This provider will not be applied to an organization until you update the organization security settings.

Do not apply this authentication provider to organizations yet. You will apply this provider to a test organization and to production organizations in later steps.
  1. If you do not use the default settings (they must match the mappings in Step 2 above), you can use Attribute mapping to customize additional mappings between CrashPlan platform user attributes and authentication provider SSO assertion attributes.
  2. Local Users displays the current user. If there are any other users you want to exempt from using this authentication provider to log in, enter them here. 

Step 4: Test SSO authentication

To avoid impacting your production environment, use a test organization to verify that SSO is working properly. 

  1. Create a test user in your identity provider. 
  2. Sign in to the CrashPlan console.
  3. Create a test organization.
  4. Configure the test organization to use SSO.
    1. Navigate to Administration > Integrations > Organizations, then select the organization.
    2. From the action menu in the upper-right, select Edit.
    3. Click Security.
      SSO-security-generic-idp-export (1).png
    4. Edit these settings in the Server section of the panel:
      1. Deselect Inherit security settings from parent.
      2. From Select an authentication method, choose SSO.
        The configured SSO identity providers appear.
      3. Select the identity providers that you want to offer for the organization.
      4. From Select a directory service, select Local.
    5. Click Save.
      The Enable Single Sign-on dialog appears.
      enable single sign on.png
    6. Type ENABLE in the field provided and click Enable.
      The settings are saved to the organization. 
    7. To verify the settings, re-open the Security tab. Under Choose providers you should see the check box selected for your identity provider.
  5. Create a user in the test organization who matches the identity provider test user.
  6. In the upper-right of the CrashPlan console, select Account Account_top_nav.png > Sign Out.
  7. Sign back in to the CrashPlan console as the test user to verify that SSO is working.

Step 5: Apply this provider to production organizations

Option A: Enable SSO for a specific organization

  1. Sign in to the CrashPlan console.
  2. Navigate to Administration > Environment > Organizations, then select the organization.
  3. From the action menu, select Edit.
  4. Click Security.
    SSO-security-generic-idp-export (3).png
  5. Deselect Inherit security settings from parent.
    Disabled inheritance
    If you disable inheritance for an organization, that organization is not affected by changes to its parent organization.
  6. From Select an authentication method, choose SSO.
    The configured authentication providers appear.
  7. Select the identity providers that you want to offer for the organization.
  8. From Select a directory service, select Local.
  9. Click Save.

Option B: Enable SSO for all organizations

Modify the system-wide organization settings to enable SSO for all organizations.

  1. Sign in to the CrashPlan console.
  2. Go to Administration > Environment > Organizations.
  3. Click on the top-level organization.
    The organization details appear.
  4. From the action menu, select Edit.
  5. Click Security.
    CloudSSO_apply_provider_to_parent_org.png
  6. From Select an authentication method, choose SSO.
    The configured authentication providers appear.
  7. Select the identity providers that you want to offer to your organizations.
  8. From Select a directory service, select Local.
  9. Click Save.
  10. Under each child organization, make sure that Inherit security settings from parent is enabled.
    1. Click the child organization.
    2. From the action menu, select Edit.
    3. Click Security.
    4. Enable Inherit security settings from parent.

Step 6: Add new users who sign in with SSO

  1. Assign the custom SAML app to users or groups in the Google dashboard. See Google's documentation for more information.
  2. Ensure users are set up in CrashPlan. You can add users manually with the CrashPlan console to an organization that uses SSO, or deploy CrashPlan apps to users in an organization that uses SSO. The users in CrashPlan must have first name, last name, and user name (email address) values that match the users' values in Google. 

What to expect

Reduced authentication prompts

When users sign in with SSO, they do not need to re-enter credentials for subsequent authentication attempts until the SAML authentication token expires. A SAML token applies to an application rather than a device, which means that a user might need to enter credentials again when signing into a different app. 

For example, the single sign-in process differs whether users sign in to the CrashPlan console or the CrashPlan app:

  • CrashPlan console: When users sign in to the CrashPlan console, they are redirected in the web browser to sign in to their SSO identity provider. As soon as they sign in to their identity provider, the CrashPlan console launches. 
  • CrashPlan app: When users sign in to the CrashPlan app, following message appears: "To complete the sign in process, go to your web browser. This screen updates automatically once login is successful." A web browser window is automatically opened so they can complete the sign-in process in their SSO identity provider.  As soon as they sign in to their SSO identity provider in the provided web browser window, the CrashPlan app launches.

Lost access to an identity provider

If a user loses access to the identity provider, the CrashPlan app continues to back up, uninterrupted.

Troubleshooting

Error: app_not_configured_for_user 

If a user attempts to sign in to CrashPlan and receives the Error: app_not_configured_for_user message, it may be due to one of the following problems.

  • The user is already authenticated in Google with a non-corporate account
    To resolve this issue, the user should sign in to Google using their corporate account, or log out completely from all Google accounts before signing in to their corporate account.
  • Incorrect application configuration
    To resolve this issue, verify that the service provider settings for the custom SAML app are configured correctly in the Google admin console.

For more failure types and solutions, see the Google documentation.

External resources

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