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This article focuses on what is single sign-on? Let’s take a look at the Collaborator authentication methods for sso

Single sign-on (SSO) is a user authentication process that allows a user to enter a name and password to access multiple applications. This procedure authenticates all applications that the user has granted them access to and eliminates further prompts when switching applications during a particular session. That is, after entering a login name and password once on the central SSO server, the user will automatically log in to other applications, such as problem trackers, source control systems, code review systems, and so on.

Note: Single sign-on authentication is supported only in Collaborator Enterprise. However, there will be differences between the Collaborator versions.

Typically, a single sign-on solution consists of several components — an SSO server and SSO clients. The SSO server is the component that performs authentication, issues and validates tokens, and so on. The SSO client is an intermediate component that can be integrated with various software platforms and applications to communicate with the SSO server through some authentication protocol. Most SSO solutions also provide single logout capabilities — that is, they allow users to log out from both the application and SSO server.

The authentication process includes the following steps:

1. The user attempts to access the Collaborator server.

Collaborator recognizes that the user is not logged in and redirects it to the SSO server.

The SSO server authenticates the user, adds some security assertion parameters, and then redirects back to the Collaborator server.

Collaborator tests the security assertion parameters and logs in the user.

5. If no user can be found with the specified credentials, Collaborator will create a new user.

The logout process includes the following steps:

1. The user attempted to logout from the Collaborator server.

2. Collaborator sends the logout request to the SSO server.

3. The SSO server logs out the user and sends the response back to the Collaborator server.

4. Collaborator logs out the user.

Single sign-on implementation in Collaborator

Currently, Collaborator supports single sign-on authentication for Web clients. Single sign-on authentication for desktop clients (GUI clients, command line clients) and IDE plug-ins (Visual Studio extensions, Eclipse plug-ins) is not supported.

There are several ways to enable single sign-on authentication:

  • Through THE SAML protocol — If your SSO vendor supports the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) standard, you can configure the SSO server and Collaborator server to use the SAML protocol for authentication. For details, read Configuring single sign-on through SAML (stay tuned for this tutorial ~).

  • Through the Crowd OpenID protocol — If you use the Atlassian Crowd server, you can configure it and the Collaborator server to authenticate using the OpenID protocol. For detailed instructions, read configuring single sign-on through Crowd OpenID (follow this tutorial ~).

  • Through Java Servlets — If your SSO vendor provides an SSO customer side application as a Java servlet, you can install it on the Collaborator server and configure it to redirect the Collaborator user to the SSO server for authentication. Read detailed instructions for configuring single sign-on via Java Servlets (stay tuned for the rest of this tutorial ~).