Skip navigation
Documentation

Duo Single Sign-On for Netskope Admin Console

Last Updated: October 31st, 2024

Add two-factor authentication and flexible security policies to Netskope Admin Console 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.

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 Netskope Admin Console 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 Netskope Admin Console.

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 Netskope Admin Console. Duo checks the user, device, and network against an application's policy before allowing access to the application.

Configure Single Sign-On

Before configuring Netskope Admin Console 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 Netskope Admin Console application in Duo.

Create the Netskope Admin Console Application in Duo

  1. Log on to the Duo Admin Panel and navigate to ApplicationsProtect an Application.

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

  3. Netskope Admin Console uses the Mail attribute when authenticating. We've mapped the <Email Address> bridge attribute to Duo Single Sign-On supported authentication source attributes as follows:

    Bridge Attribute Active Directory SAML IdP
    <Email Address> mail Email

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

  4. 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.

  5. 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 Netskope Admin Console 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 Netskope Admin Console application before March 2024, you can activate the Universal Prompt experience for users from the Duo Admin Panel. Netskope Admin Console applications created after March 2024 have the Universal Prompt activated by default.

If you created your Netskope Admin Console 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 Netskope Admin Console for SSO

  1. Log into your Netskope Admin Console appliance. The "General Settings" page opens.

  2. In the left menu sidebar, click Users. The "User Settings" page opens.

  3. Click Create New User. The "Add User" pop-up window opens.

  4. Enter your email address into the Username field.

  5. Enter your password into the Password and Confirm Password fields.

  6. Click the User Permissions drop-down menu and select Super Admin.

  7. Click Save.

  8. On the "User Settings" page, click the SSO Configuration tab.

  9. Click the SSO toggle switch.

  10. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Under "Metadata", copy the Identity Provider Issuer URL and paste it into the Netskope Admin Console Identity Provider Issuer URL field.

  11. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Copy the Identity Provider SSO URL and paste it into the Netskope Admin Console Identity provider SSO URL field.

    Duo Netskope Admin Console Metadata Fields
  12. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Under "Downloads", click Copy certificate and paste the certificate text into the Netskope Admin Console Public x509 Certificate field.

  13. In the Netskope Admin Console, click Save.

  14. Copy the Service Provider Entity ID and paste it into the Duo Admin Panel Service Provider Entity ID field.

  15. Return to the Netskope Admin Console "User Settings" page. Copy the Service Provider ACS URL and paste it into the Duo Admin Panel Service Provider ACS URL field.

    Duo Netskope Admin Console Service Provider Fields

Group Mapping

Mapping Duo groups to groups in Netskope Admin Console is required. You have the option to assign read-only access or read-write access. See the image below for an example. Go to the Assign People to the Admin Role section of the "Cloud Exchange SSO with Okta" Netskope article for more information.

  1. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Under "Service Provider", type netskope-ce-read for read-only access, or type netskope-ce-write;netskope-ce-read for read-write access, into the Netskope Admin Console Group field.

  2. Click the Duo groups drop-down menu and select the applicable Duo group to map.

  3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save.

    Duo Netskope Admin Console Group Mapping Fields

Learn more about Netskope Admin Console SSO at the Netskope Knowledge Portal.

Using SSO

You can log on to Netskope Admin Console by navigating to your Netskope Admin Console SSO page e.g., https://192.168.11.123:444/login. Click Login With SSO 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.

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 Netskope Admin Console to complete the login process.

Duo Universal Prompt

* Universal Prompt experience shown.

You can also log into Netskope Admin Console using Duo Central, our cloud-hosted portal which allows users to access all of their applications in one spot. Link to Netskope Admin Console 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 Netskope Admin Console.

Congratulations! Your Netskope Admin Console 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.

Enforce SSO

You can require that all users sign into Netskope Admin Console using Duo Single Sign-On.

  1. Log into your Netskope Admin Console appliance. The "General Settings" page opens.

  2. In the left menu sidebar, click Users. The "User Settings" page opens.

  3. Click the SSO Configuration tab.

  4. Click the Force Authentication toggle switch.

Enable Remembered Devices

To minimize additional Duo two-factor prompts when switching between Netskope Admin Console 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.