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Duo Single Sign-On for SonicWall SMA 200 Series

Last Updated: June 1st, 2023

Add two-factor authentication and flexible security policies to SonicWall SMA 200 Series SAML 2.0 logins with Duo Single-Sign On. Our cloud-hosted SSO identity provider offers inline user enrollment, self-service device management, and support for a variety of authentication methods — such as passkeys and security keys, Duo Push, or Verified Duo Push — in the Universal Prompt.

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.

This Duo application supports SMA 200 series devices (SMA 100, SMA 200, SMA 400, and SMA 500v).

It is not compatible with SMA 1000 series devices, or SonicWall NSA, TZ, or EX (Aventail) devices. To add single sign-on protection for these devices try our Duo Single Sign-on Generic Service Provider application.

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 SonicWall SMA 200 Series 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 SonicWall SMA 200 Series.

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 SonicWall SMA 200 Series. Duo checks the user, device, and network against an application's policy before allowing access to the application.

Configure Single Sign-On

Before configuring SonicWall SMA 200 Series 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 SonicWall SMA 200 Series application in Duo.

Create the SonicWall SMA 200 Series 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 SonicWall SMA 200 Series 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 SonicWall SMA 200 Series. See Protecting Applications for more information about protecting applications in Duo and additional application options. You'll need the information on the SonicWall SMA 200 Series page under Downloads later.

  3. The SonicWall SMA 200 Series application uses the Username attribute when authenticating. We've mapped the <Username> bridge attribute to Duo Single Sign-On supported authentication source attributes as follows:

    Bridge Attribute Active Directory SAML IdP
    <Username> sAMAccountName Username

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

  4. In the Duo Admin Panel under "Downloads", click Download certificate.

  5. 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.

  6. 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
 Duo Push in Universal Prompt  Duo Push in Traditional Prompt

We've already updated the Duo SonicWall SMA 200 Series 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 SonicWall SMA 200 Series application before March 2024, you can activate the Universal Prompt experience for users from the Duo Admin Panel. SonicWall SMA 200 Series applications created after March 2024 have the Universal Prompt activated by default.

If you created your SonicWall SMA 200 Series 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.

Universal Prompt Info - Universal Prompt Activation Complete

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 SonicWall SMA 200 Series for SSO

  1. Log into the SonicWall SMA management interface as an administrative user.

  2. In the left menu sidebar, click System and then click Certificates.

  3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click IMPORT SAML CERTIFICATE. Upload the certificate file you downloaded earlier.

  4. Enter a unique display name for your certificate into the Display Name (optional) field and then click UPLOAD.

    SonicWall SMA 200 Series Certificate Upload and Display Name
  5. In the left menu sidebar, click Portals and then click Portals.

  6. Click Add Portal and then click the General tab.

  7. In the Portal Name field, enter a descriptive name for your SSO portal, like "Duo-SSO-Portal".

    SonicWall SMA 200 Series Portal Name Field
  8. Click the Virtual Host tab.

  9. Enter your desired Virtual Host Domain Name (for example, smasaml.example.com) and select a Virtual Host Certificate to secure the incoming client connection with SSL (see the SonicWALL administration guide for your device to learn how to import virtual host certificates).

  10. Click OK.

    SonicWall SMA 200 Series Virtual Host Domain Name Field
  11. In the "Portals" list, locate the portal you created above. Copy the domain name in the "VIRTUAL HOST SETTINGS" column and paste it into the Duo Admin Panel Appliance's IP address or Hostname field.

    Duo SonicWall SMA 200 Series Appliance IP Address or Hostname
  12. Return to the SonicWall SMA management interface. In the left menu sidebar, click Portals and then click Domains.

  13. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click ADD DOMAIN.

  14. Click the Authentication type drop-down menu and select SAML 2.0 Identity Provider.

  15. In the Domain name field, enter a custom name for your domain. The custom name needs to be unique on the SMA device.

  16. In the Appliance ID field, enter a custom name for your appliance ID.

  17. Copy the appliance ID you entered and paste it into the Duo Admin Panel Appliance ID field.

    Duo SonicWall SMA 200 Series Appliance ID
  18. In the Duo Admin Panel, copy the Server ID and paste it into the SonicWall SMA management interface Server ID field.

  19. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Copy the Authentication service URL and paste it into the SonicWall SMA management interface Authentication service URL field.

  20. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Copy the Logout service URL and paste it into the SonicWall SMA management interface Logout service URL field.

    Duo SonicWall SMA 200 Series Metadata URLs
  21. Click the Trusted Certificates drop-down menu and select the Duo certificate you uploaded earlier.

  22. Select the portal you created for Duo SSO in the Portal name field.

    SonicWall SMA 200 Series Add Domain Page
  23. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click SUBMIT.

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

Learn more about SonicWall SMA 200 Series SSO at the SonicWall Knowledge Base.

Using SSO

You can log on to the SonicWall SMA SSL VPN using SSO by navigating to the URL that uses the virtual domain name for the portal you created for Duo SSO e.g., https://smasaml.example.com. Select the Duo SSO domain from the domain list and click Next. You will then be redirected to Duo Single Sign-On to begin authentication.

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.

Duo Single Sign-On Login

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

Duo Single Sign-On Password

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 SonicWall SMA 200 Series to complete the login process.

Duo Universal Prompt

* Universal Prompt experience shown.

SonicWall VPN Clients

SonicWall VPN clients, like NetExtender or Mobile Connect, launch a browser window or tab for completing Duo Single Sign-On authentication. The VPN client connects after Duo authentication completes successfully in the browser.

SonicWall Mobile Connect with Duo Authentication

You can also log into SonicWall SMA 200 Series using Duo Central, our cloud-hosted portal which allows users to access all of their applications in one spot. Link to SonicWall SMA 200 Series in Duo Central by adding it as an application tile. Once the tile has been added, log into Duo Central and click the tile for IdP-initiated authentication to SonicWall SMA 200 Series.

Congratulations! Your SonicWall SMA 200 Series 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 SonicWall SMA 200 Series 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? Review troubleshooting tips for the Authentication Proxy and try the connectivity tool included with Duo Authentication Proxy 2.9.0 and later to discover and troubleshoot general connectivity issues.

Also take a look at the SonicWall SMA 200 Series Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page or try searching our SonicWall SMA Knowledge Base articles or Community discussions. For further assistance, contact Support.