SAML Testing is Tough, Make It Easier

[JCDavid]

It's no secret that setting up SSO can be challenging. SAML is 'all or nothing', so having an IdP that provides open access for testing and tools such as this helps make what could otherwise be a bumpy rollout more seamless. Here's a great free tool to help, if there's not a pre-made integration from your idP. 

What's been the most difficult aspect of SSO projects for your team and how did you resolve those issues?

[steven]

Oh, this is fantastic. I've used some various SSO testing tools in the past and all have been a pain to use. My company never used any SSO apps prior to adopting JumpCloud, so it's been a bit rough for me to get apps setup. Also different IdPs have slightly different names for the same fields, so that's been another issue that's arisen.

[BScott]

What have you done to alleviate that, @steven — did you have to create some mapping for the fields or at least some sort of key that lists which IdP uses which fields?

[steven]

Unfortunately just a lot of trial and error. I do have some documentation for a VPN service (Pritunl) that we use, where the JumpCloud terminology and Pritunl terminology didn't match up perfectly.

What I'm finding is that most companies cater to Okta with their documentation, which gets me part of the way there, but Okta has more fields than JumpCloud, and occasionally terms won't match up. Which I find odd because SAML is a universal protocol?

[Ben_Garrison]

It's pretty industry standard but yes there are some service providers that refer to certain fields with a different name. For instance "idP entity id". Could be called something different within the SP. I have seen on SP call that field the "Identity ID". Because that wasn't confusing.