SharePoint External Login Access – Forms Authentication vs Azure ACS

Things I will be talking about..

- Extranet scenarios in SharePoint

- Claims Authentication

- Forms Based Authentication

- 3rd party vendor options for Forms Based Auth

- Azure ACS Authentication

- Pros & Cons of Forms Based Auth vs Azure ACS

What’s an Extranet?

Controlled access from external networks

Extranet Requirements

o What do you REALLY need?

• Who needs access to your SharePoint?• How sensitive is the data?

• How important is ease of access?

• How important is ease of user management?

Extranet Requirements

o Who Needs access?

Internal employees = Active Directory, Azure

Active Directory

External users (Clients, partners, consultants) =

Active Directory, Forms Based Authentication,

Azure ACS Authentication

Claims Authentication

First things first- understanding Authentication vs Authorization..

Authentication is the process of validating a user’s identity.

(SharePoint never performs authentication btw)

Authorization is the process of deciding the resources &

functionality to which an authenticated user has access to

Claims Authentication

Q. What’s a Claim?

A. A piece of info describing a user:

- Name Jane Doe

- Email jane.doe@organization.com

- Group/Role membership HR

- Age 24

- Hire Date 12/10/2013

- etc.

Claims Authentication

Q. Why do we say “claim” and not “attribute”?

A. Consider:

- Both Facebook and Microsoft have an Age attribute

- Facebook claims user is 18 while Microsoft claims the

user is 35

In order to make authorization decisions, your app

needs to decide which “claim” it will trust.

Claims Authentication

How Claims works (the techy diagram):

Claims Authentication

How Claims works (layman’s terms):

You check in at the Airport (SharePoint)

(Authentication)

- present credentials (Passport)

- credentials are validated by security guard

You receive a boarding pass

(Authorization)

- Seat, Frequent Flyer, Gate etc.

Claims Authentication

More on the details of claims (great party trivia!):

http://yalla.itgroove.net/2012/11/claims-based-authentication-in-sharepoint-2

010/

Forms Based Authentication

OPTION A – Roll your own

Setting up a basic Forms Authentication implementation

http://blogs.visigo.com/chriscoulson/configuring-forms-based-authentication-in-share

point-2013-part-1-creating-the-membership-database

/

Details config required to enable basic Forms Authentication in your SharePoint

2013 Farm

SharePoint 2013 FBA Pack

http://sharepoint2013fba.codeplex.com/

Open source add on to basic Forms plumbing that adds extra options in SharePoint

site settings & web parts for user management, password reset, etc.

Forms Based Authentication

OPTION A – Roll your own

Demo

Forms Based Authentication

OPTION B – 3rd Party Vendors

- FBA Suite

- ExCM 2013

- Extradium

- Envision IT Extranet User Manager for SharePoint

- itgroove

.. and more.

Forms Based Authentication

Functionality to consider when planning Forms

Auth:

• Password Policies – Minimum length, complexity, expiry, re-use of old PW

• Login Details – Failed login lockout criteria, remember PW

• Self-service – Resetting PW, forgotten PW retrieval

• Branding – Styling of Login & User facing web pages

• Data Store – Database encryption, reporting & User auditing

Microsoft Excel Worksheet

Azure ACS Authentication

Cloud based Microsoft Identity providerwww.WindowsAzure.com

Management Console:https://manage.windowsazure.com

Azure ACS Authentication

- Allows Claims authentication against popular identity providers like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook etc.

- Is a $ free service $ as part of your overall Windows Azure account

- Initial setup in SharePoint is performed via a PowerShell that sets up a certificate, defines what Claims to use, and defines your providers

- Once the SharePoint web app is married to the Azure ACS Access Control Namespace, we then go to the web app settings in SharePoint Central Administration and enable the new Identity Provider we’ve created

Azure ACS Authentication

Azure ACS Authentication

Azure ACS Authentication

Azure ACS Authentication

Azure ACS Authentication

Further references for configuring Azure ACS:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg429788.aspx

http://dannyjessee.com/blog/index.php/2012/11/using-azure-acs-to-sign-in-to-sha

repoint-2013-with-facebook

/

http://robbincremers.me/2012/02/22/using-windows-azure-access-control-service-

to-provide-a-single-sign-on-experience-with-popular-identity-providers

/

http://

blogs.msdn.com/b/mvpawardprogram/archive/2011/06/17/mvps-for-sharepoint-20

10-using-azure-acs-v2-to-authenticate-external-systems-users.aspx

Pros & Cons of Forms Based Auth YAY NAY

Easy to remove user accounts when they need to be put out to pasture

Typically requires low level configuration and mucking about SharePoint guts e.g. web.config

Direct control of the login branding and user experience end-to-end

Users are stored in a SQL database which is decoupled from your main AD, can make reconciling profile properties later hard

Can be completely on-premise and self contained, reading from a SQL database that your organization controls. Great for Government/Orgs with privacy requirements

For a truly robust Forms auth implementation, you will likely want to go 3rd party which involves $ and careful evaluation of product/service offerings

Allows a “sticky” login session stickhandled by cookies as compared to the default NTLM experience which tends to be screwy on Chrome/Firefox/iPads etc.

Can inherit AD policies such as password complexity rules

Pros & Cons of Azure ACS Auth YAY NAY

Hosted in the Cloud(stability, global data center redundancy, support)

Hosted in the Cloud(privacy and data ownership concerns)

Free service as part of your overall Azure account

Complex to set up for different identity providers – Facebook for example requires signing up for a Facebook Dev account and creating a Facebook Application

Can be coordinated with an overall hybrid Active Directory/Office 365 strategy

The Live ID identity provider is ironically the biggest deadbeat out of the bunch as it returns the username as gobbley gook. In order to get the SharePoint username claim right extra coding is required.

Extremely easy user adoption – users can login in with their existing, familiar identity providers

The identity providers hold the key to users access to SharePoint – when it comes time to retire a user your only privilege is to remove their SharePoint user rights, leaving potential gaps as it’s hard to audit SharePoint user access rights out of the box

Thanks!Keith TuomiEmail: ktuomi@itgroove.netBlog: http://yalla.itgroove.net Twitter: @itgroove_keith