Duo Single Sign-On for Citrix Workspace

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.

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 Citrix Workspace 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 Citrix Workspace.

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 Citrix Workspace. Duo checks the user, device, and network against an application's policy before allowing access to the application.

Configure Single Sign-On

Before configuring Citrix Workspace 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 Citrix Workspace application in Duo.

Create the Citrix Workspace Application in Duo

1. Log on to the Duo Admin Panel and navigate to Applications → Protect an Application.

2. Locate the entry for Citrix Workspace 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 Citrix Workspace. See Protecting Applications for more information about protecting applications in Duo and additional application options. You'll need the information on the Citrix Workspace page under Downloads later.

3. Citrix Workspace uses the Mail attribute, Display name attribute, First name attribute, and Last name attribute when authenticating. We've mapped the bridge attributes to Duo Single Sign-On supported authentication source attributes as follows:

   Bridge Attribute	Active Directory	SAML IdP
   <Email Address>	mail	cip_email
   <Display Name>	display_name	displayName
   <First Name>	first_name	givenName
   <Last Name>	last_name	familyName

4. If you are using a SAML authentication source, then Citrix Workspace also requires the Globally unique identifier attribute, Security identifier attribute, and User principal name attribute when authenticating. These need to be set up as claims attributes in the authentication source, and are mapped to Duo Single Sign-On supported authentication source attributes as follows:

   Bridge Attribute	Active Directory	SAML IdP
   <Globally Unique Identifier>	objectGUID	cip_oid
   <Security Identifier>	objectSid	cip_sid
   <User Principal Name>	userPrincipalName	cip_upn

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

   

6. The SAML IdP cip_oid, cip_sid, and cip_upn attributes can be customized to match what your SAML authentication source is mapping them to. Click the attribute to open up the drop-down menu, and then click Enter custom value. Type your SAML IdP custom attribute name.

   

7. 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.

8. 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

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

If you created your Citrix Workspace 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.

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 Citrix Workspace for SSO

Citrix Federated Authentication Service

You have the option to enable SSO with Citrix Federated Authentication Service (FAS). Learn more about Citrix FAS at Citrix Product Documentation.

SAML Configuration

1. Log into your Citrix Workspace account as an administrative user.

2. In the top left corner of the page, click the menu icon and then click Identity and Access Management.

3. Scroll down to "SAML 2.0". Click ... and then click Connect.

   

4. In the pop-up window, type your desired sign-in URL and then click Save and Continue. The "Configure SAML" page opens.

5. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Copy the Entity ID and paste it into the Citrix Workspace Identity Provider Entity ID field.

6. Under "Sign Authentication Request", click the Yes radio button.

7. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Copy the SSO Service URL and paste it into the Citrix Workspace SSO Service URL field.

   

8. Under "Binding Mechanism", click the Select Binding Mechanism drop-down menu and select Http Redirect.

9. Under "SAML Response", click the Select SAML Response drop-down menu and select Sign Either Response Or Assertion.

10. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Under "Downloads", click Download certificate.

11. Return to Citrix Workspace. Next to "X.509 Certificate", click Upload File. In the pop-up window, click browse and open the certificate file you downloaded earlier. Click Continue.

12. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Enter https://saml.cloud.com into the Entity ID field.

13. Enter https://saml.cloud.com/saml/acs into the Assertion Consumer Service (ACS) URL field.

    

14. In the Duo Admin Panel, scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save.

15. Return to Citrix Workspace. Under "Authentication Context", click the Select Authentication Context drop-down menu and select Unspecified.

16. Click the Select Type drop-down menu and select Minimum.

    

17. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Test and Finish.

18. In the top left corner of the page, click the menu icon and then click Workspace Configuration.

19. On the "Workspace Configuration" page, click the Authentication tab.

20. Click the SAML 2.0 radio button. In the pop-up window, click the checkbox and then click Confirm.

Admin Sign-In URL

The Admin Sign-In URL can be used for either the Citrix Workspace URL or the Citrix Cloud admin page URL. Citrix Workspace subscribers and Citrix Cloud administrators can both use the Admin Sign-In URL e.g., https://citrix.cloud.com to sign in.

Learn more about Citrix Workspace SSO at Citrix Product Documentation.

Using SSO

You can log on to Citrix Workspace by navigating to your Citrix Workspace SSO page e.g., https://example.cloud.com. Enter your email address and click Next to 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.

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

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 Citrix Workspace to complete the login process.

* Universal Prompt experience shown.

Congratulations! Your Citrix Workspace 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 Citrix Workspace 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? Try searching our Knowledge Base articles or Community discussions. For further assistance, contact Support.