Setting up authentication context

Authorization Control Plane (ACP) allows you to set attributes defining the ACP-standard authentication context schema.

Prerequisites

About authentication context in ACP

ACP allows you to standardize user data incoming from IDPs acting on behalf of the user. Different IDPs pass authentication data in a different manner, depending the IDP type and configuration. This data must then be mapped to an ACP-standard schema, that is, the authentication context, in order to create a standardized data set to be used in various scenarios, such as policy validation or claim definitions. ACP comes with a predefined authentication context schema so that you don’t have to create one from scratch. Standard sets of attributes are also defined for each IDP.

Authentication context attributes are used as:

Define authentication context schema

In the video below, we are adding a new attribute, representing the user’s nickname, to the predefined authentication context schema. As a result, we will be able to map data incoming from IDPs to this attribute. This way, you can create any authentication context schema matching your needs.

  1. Select Authentication Context from the tenant menu.

    Result

    List of predefined authentication context attributes is displayed.

  2. Select CREATE ATTRIBUTE from the Authentication Context Schema view.

  3. In the Add attribute dialog box, fill in the Name, Data type, and Description fields.

  4. Select Create to save your new attribute.

    Result

    Your new attribute is visible in the Authentication Context Schema view, meaning that you can now proceed to mapping IDP-specific attributes to it.

Remove an attribute

Note

If you remove an authentication context attribute, all mappings that use this attribute are removed as well.

  1. Select the trash can icon next to the attribute that you want to remove.

  2. Confirm your choice by selecting YES, DELETE in the Delete attribute dialog box.

    Result

    The attribute is gone from the list of authentication context attributes in the Authentication Context Schema view.

Map IDP attributes to authentication context schema

By mapping your identity attributes, you unify attributes from all IDPs that your users authenticate with into a single authentication context. It allows you to use a set of unified attributes throughout ACP for multiple purposes. In the video below, we’re mapping the Login attribute from GitHub to the Nickname attribute defined in the authentication schema. This means that the value of Nickname is taken from the Login parameter of the incoming Github authentication requests.

  1. Select Identities from the left sidebar.

  2. Select an identity connection from the list of available IDPs.

  3. Select Mappings from the top menu.

  4. Configure each source-target attributes pair so that a source attribute matches a target one.

    1. Select a source IDP attribute name from the drop-down list.

      Note

      • If the source attribute is not defined out of the box (for example when the IDP provides a custom attribute, such as crm_id), you need to add this attribute to the IDP before you can map it.
      • To add an attribute for your identity, go to ACP Administrator Portal > Identities (left sidebar) > Identity (from the IDP list) > Attributes tab > Add attribute.
    2. Select a target authentication context attribute from the drop-down list.

    3. Select Save mappings. Your mappings are added to the list.

Having defined and mapped the authentication context attributes, you can proceed to use them to define claims and validate policies.