Adopting SAML with an existing user base

SSO
1

My current installation of Discourse has the registration of new users disabled and the login is done through the LDAP plugin ( https://github.com/jonmbake/discourse-ldap-auth). Many of the internal users are therefore already existing with different content created.

I have been asked to install/migrate to SAML to integrate the flow we have with Okta. I installed the plugin (https://github.com/discourse/discourse-saml) with the option DISCOURSE_SAML_AUTO_CREATE_ACCOUNT: true. The requirement is to create the user, if it doesn’t exist. Otherwise, if the user exists (because it was previously created with LDAP) then the same user must be reused. The behaviour I have instead is that it tries to create a new user, on an already existing username, and then it obviously breaks. If I remove the auto create option, it shows a popup where you can edit the registration info with the correct pre-filled in username but with a numeric prefix to avoid the conflict. Obviously this is not an option in my case.

Do you have any suggestions?

Maybe this old post is related, but without any answer.
https://meta.discourse.org/t/verify-if-user-is-already-logged-sso-with-saml2-discourse-saml/73213
(I cannot put more than two links on the post, sorry)

Thanks in advance.
AB

2

The users are usually matched by email address. Do ldap and saml not use the same email address?

2 Likes
3

The email address are the same, probably I have to check what is coming within the SAML payload.

Thanks for the hint. I’m going to check.

1 Like
4

I’m getting the following error:

Started POST "/auth/saml" for 188.114.103.216 at 2020-08-04 16:46:20 +0000
(saml) Request phase initiated.
Started POST "/auth/saml/callback" for 188.114.103.216 at 2020-08-04 16:46:21 +0000
(saml) Callback phase initiated.
Processing by Users::OmniauthCallbacksController#complete as HTML
  Parameters: {"SAMLResponse"=>"........", "RelayState"=>"", "provider"=>"saml"}
Completed 422 Unprocessable Entity in 16ms (ActiveRecord: 0.0ms | Allocations: 4546)
ActiveRecord::RecordInvalid (Validation failed: Primary email is invalid.)
lib/distributed_mutex.rb:33:in `block in synchronize'
lib/distributed_mutex.rb:29:in `synchronize'
lib/distributed_mutex.rb:29:in `synchronize'
lib/distributed_mutex.rb:14:in `synchronize'
app/controllers/users/omniauth_callbacks_controller.rb:37:in `complete'
app/controllers/application_controller.rb:350:in `block in with_resolved_locale'
app/controllers/application_controller.rb:350:in `with_resolved_locale'
lib/middleware/omniauth_bypass_middleware.rb:47:in `call'
lib/content_security_policy/middleware.rb:12:in `call'
lib/middleware/anonymous_cache.rb:328:in `call'
config/initializers/100-quiet_logger.rb:19:in `call'
config/initializers/100-silence_logger.rb:31:in `call'
lib/middleware/enforce_hostname.rb:22:in `call'
lib/middleware/request_tracker.rb:176:in `call'
Failed to handle exception in exception app middleware : Validation failed: Primary email is invalid.

I checked the payload of the SAML response, and it looks like the following (with some data removed for obvious reasons):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<saml2p:Response xmlns:saml2p="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:protocol" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" Destination="https://example.com/auth/saml/callback" ID="id123" IssueInstant="2020-08-04T16:39:45.888Z" Version="2.0">
   <saml2:Issuer xmlns:saml2="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:assertion" Format="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:entity">http://www.okta.com/xyz</saml2:Issuer>
   <ds:Signature xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#">
      <ds:SignedInfo>
         <ds:CanonicalizationMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/10/xml-exc-c14n#" />
         <ds:SignatureMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmldsig-more#rsa-sha256" />
         <ds:Reference URI="#id123">
            <ds:Transforms>
               <ds:Transform Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#enveloped-signature" />
               <ds:Transform Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/10/xml-exc-c14n#">
                  <ec:InclusiveNamespaces xmlns:ec="http://www.w3.org/2001/10/xml-exc-c14n#" PrefixList="xs" />
               </ds:Transform>
            </ds:Transforms>
            <ds:DigestMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#sha256" />
            <ds:DigestValue>....</ds:DigestValue>
         </ds:Reference>
      </ds:SignedInfo>
      <ds:SignatureValue>...</ds:SignatureValue>
      <ds:KeyInfo>
         <ds:X509Data>
            <ds:X509Certificate>...</ds:X509Certificate>
         </ds:X509Data>
      </ds:KeyInfo>
   </ds:Signature>
   <saml2p:Status>
      <saml2p:StatusCode Value="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:status:Success" />
   </saml2p:Status>
   <saml2:Assertion xmlns:saml2="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:assertion" ID="id123" IssueInstant="2020-08-04T16:39:45.888Z" Version="2.0">
      <saml2:Issuer Format="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:entity">http://www.okta.com/xyz</saml2:Issuer>
      <ds:Signature xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#">
         <ds:SignedInfo>
            <ds:CanonicalizationMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/10/xml-exc-c14n#" />
            <ds:SignatureMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmldsig-more#rsa-sha256" />
            <ds:Reference URI="#id123">
               <ds:Transforms>
                  <ds:Transform Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#enveloped-signature" />
                  <ds:Transform Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/10/xml-exc-c14n#">
                     <ec:InclusiveNamespaces xmlns:ec="http://www.w3.org/2001/10/xml-exc-c14n#" PrefixList="xs" />
                  </ds:Transform>
               </ds:Transforms>
               <ds:DigestMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#sha256" />
               <ds:DigestValue>...</ds:DigestValue>
            </ds:Reference>
         </ds:SignedInfo>
         <ds:SignatureValue>...</ds:SignatureValue>
         <ds:KeyInfo>
            <ds:X509Data>
               <ds:X509Certificate>...</ds:X509Certificate>
            </ds:X509Data>
         </ds:KeyInfo>
      </ds:Signature>
      <saml2:Subject>
         <saml2:NameID Format="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:unspecified">my.name</saml2:NameID>
         <saml2:SubjectConfirmation Method="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:cm:bearer">
            <saml2:SubjectConfirmationData NotOnOrAfter="2020-08-04T16:44:45.888Z" Recipient="https://example.com/auth/saml/callback" />
         </saml2:SubjectConfirmation>
      </saml2:Subject>
      <saml2:Conditions NotBefore="2020-08-04T16:34:45.888Z" NotOnOrAfter="2020-08-04T16:44:45.888Z">
         <saml2:AudienceRestriction>
            <saml2:Audience>https://example.com</saml2:Audience>
         </saml2:AudienceRestriction>
      </saml2:Conditions>
      <saml2:AuthnStatement AuthnInstant="2020-08-04T06:53:32.462Z" SessionIndex="id789">
         <saml2:AuthnContext>
            <saml2:AuthnContextClassRef>urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport</saml2:AuthnContextClassRef>
         </saml2:AuthnContext>
      </saml2:AuthnStatement>
      <saml2:AttributeStatement>
         <saml2:Attribute Name="screenName" NameFormat="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:attrname-format:basic">
            <saml2:AttributeValue xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:type="xs:string">my.name@example.com</saml2:AttributeValue>
         </saml2:Attribute>
      </saml2:AttributeStatement>
   </saml2:Assertion>
</saml2p:Response>

Any ideas?

Thanks,
AB

5

So it looks like your SAML is not ending the email address? Or you’re looking in the wrong field?

1 Like
6

The issue is my Okta/SAML is sending the username and not the email within this field

<saml2:NameID Format="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:unspecified">my.name</saml2:NameID>

I fixed by adding a new attribute called email and then forking the project to setup the result.mail by reading it from this new attribute (if present).

I’m going to create a pull request.

Thanks
AB

1 Like