awx/docs/auth/saml.md

SAML

Security Assertion Markup Language, or SAML, is an open standard for exchanging authentication and/or authorization data between an identity provider (i.e., LDAP) and a service provider (i.e., AWX). More concretely, AWX can be configured to talk with SAML in order to authenticate (create/login/logout) users of AWX. User Team and Organization membership can be embedded in the SAML response to AWX.

Configure SAML Authentication

Please see the AWX documentation for basic SAML configuration. Note that AWX's SAML implementation relies on python-social-auth which uses python-saml. AWX exposes three fields which are directly passed to the lower libraries:

• SOCIAL_AUTH_SAML_SP_EXTRA is passed to the python-saml library configuration's sp setting.
• SOCIAL_AUTH_SAML_SECURITY_CONFIG is passed to the python-saml library configuration's security setting.
• SOCIAL_AUTH_SAML_EXTRA_DATA

See https://python-social-auth.readthedocs.io/en/latest/backends/saml.html#advanced-settings for more information.

Configure SAML for Team and Organization Membership

AWX can be configured to look for particular attributes that contain AWX Team and Organization membership to associate with users when they log in to AWX. The attribute names are defined in AWX settings. Specifically, the authentication settings tab and SAML sub category fields SAML Team Attribute Mapping and SAML Organization Attribute Mapping. The meaning and usefulness of these settings is best communicated through example.

Example SAML Organization Attribute Mapping

Below is an example SAML attribute that embeds user organization membership in the attribute member-of.

<saml2:AttributeStatement>
    <saml2:Attribute FriendlyName="member-of" Name="member-of" NameFormat="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:attrname-format:unspecified">
   	 <saml2:AttributeValue>Engineering</saml2:AttributeValue>
   	 <saml2:AttributeValue>IT</saml2:AttributeValue>
   	 <saml2:AttributeValue>HR</saml2:AttributeValue>
   	 <saml2:AttributeValue>Sales</saml2:AttributeValue>
    </saml2:Attribute>
    <saml2:Attribute FriendlyName="administrator-of" Name="administrator-of" NameFormat="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:attrname-format:unspecified">
   	 <saml2:AttributeValue>IT</saml2:AttributeValue>
   	 <saml2:AttributeValue>HR</saml2:AttributeValue>
    </saml2:Attribute>
</saml2:AttributeStatement>

Below, the corresponding AWX configuration:

{
  "saml_attr": "member-of",
  "saml_admin_attr": "administrator-of",
  "remove": true,
  'remove_admins': true
}

saml_attr: The SAML attribute name where the organization array can be found.

remove: Set this to true to remove a user from all organizations before adding the user to the list of Organizations. Set it to false to keep the user in whatever Organization(s) they are in while adding the user to the Organization(s) in the SAML attribute.

saml_admin_attr: The SAML attribute name where the organization administrators' array can be found.

remove_admins: Set this to true to remove a user from all organizations that they are administrators of before adding the user to the list of Organizations admins. Set it to false to keep the user in whatever Organization(s) they are in as admin while adding the user as an Organization administrator in the SAML attribute.

Example SAML Team Attribute Mapping

Below is another example of a SAML attribute that contains a Team membership in a list:

  <saml:AttributeStatement>
     <saml:Attribute
       xmlns:x500="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:profiles:attribute:X500"
       x500:Encoding="LDAP"
       NameFormat="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:attrname-format:uri"
       Name="urn:oid:1.3.6.1.4.1.5923.1.1.1.1"
       FriendlyName="eduPersonAffiliation">
       <saml:AttributeValue
         xsi:type="xs:string">member</saml:AttributeValue>
       <saml:AttributeValue
         xsi:type="xs:string">staff</saml:AttributeValue>
     </saml:Attribute>
   </saml:AttributeStatement>

{
  "saml_attr": "eduPersonAffiliation",
  "remove": true,
  "team_org_map": [
    {
      "team": "member",
      "organization": "Default1"
    },
    {
      "team": "staff",
      "organization": "Default2"
    }
  ]
}

saml_attr: The SAML attribute name where the team array can be found.

remove: Set this to true to remove user from all Teams before adding the user to the list of Teams. Set this to false to keep the user in whatever Team(s) they are in while adding the user to the Team(s) in the SAML attribute.

team_org_map: An array of dictionaries of the form { "team": "<AWX Team Name>", "organization": "<AWX Org Name>" } which defines mapping from AWX Team -> AWX Organization. This is needed because the same named Team can exist in multiple Organizations in Tower. The organization to which a team listed in a SAML attribute belongs to would be ambiguous without this mapping.

Example SAML User Flags Attribute Mapping

SAML User flags can be set for users with global "System Administrator" (superuser) or "System Auditor" (system_auditor) permissions.

Below is an example of a SAML attribute that contains admin attributes:

<saml2:AttributeStatement>
    <saml2:Attribute FriendlyName="is_system_auditor" Name="is_system_auditor" NameFormat="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:attrname-format:unspecified">
   	 <saml2:AttributeValue>Auditor</saml2:AttributeValue>
    </saml2:Attribute>
    <saml2:Attribute FriendlyName="is_superuser" Name="is_superuser" NameFormat="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:attrname-format:unspecified">
   	 <saml2:AttributeValue>IT-Superadmin</saml2:AttributeValue>
    </saml2:Attribute>
</saml2:AttributeStatement>

These properties can be defined either by a role or an attribute with the following configuration options:

{
  "is_superuser_role": ["awx_admins"],
  "is_superuser_attr": "is_superuser",
  "is_superuser_value": ["IT-Superadmin"],
  "is_system_auditor_role": ["awx_auditors"],
  "is_system_auditor_attr": "is_system_auditor",
  "is_system_auditor_value": ["Auditor"]
}

is_superuser_role: Specifies a SAML role which will grant a user the superuser flag.

is_superuser_attr: Specifies a SAML attribute which will grant a user the superuser flag.

is_superuser_value: Specifies a specific value required for is_superuser_attr that is required for the user to be a superuser.

is_system_auditor_role: Specifies a SAML role which will grant a user the system auditor flag.

is_system_auditor_attr: Specifies a SAML attribute which will grant a user the system auditor flag.

is_system_auditor_value: Specifies a specific value required for is_system_auditor_attr that is required for the user to be a system auditor.

If role and attr are both specified for either superuser or system_auditor the settings for attr will take precedence over a role. The following table describes how the logic works.

Has Role	Has Attr	Has Attr Value	Is Flagged
No	No	N/A	No
Yes	No	N/A	Yes
No	Yes	Yes	Yes
No	Yes	No	No
No	Yes	Unset	Yes
Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Yes	Yes	No	No
Yes	Yes	Unset	Yes

SAML Debugging

You can enable logging messages for the SAML adapter the same way you can enable logging for LDAP. On the logging settings page change the log level to Debug.