Netbox Plugin for SSO using SAML2

Netbox 2.8 provides enhancements to support remote user authentication uses specific variables defined in the configuration.py file, as described here:

https://netbox.readthedocs.io/en/stable/configuration/optional-settings/

This repository provides a Netbox plugin that can be used to integrate with a SAML SSO system, such as Okta.

NOTE: This approach uses a reverse-proxy URL rewrite so that the standard Netbox Login will redirect the User to the SSO system. Please refer to the example nginx.conf file.

*NOTE: Netbox plugin for SSO, v2.0+, supports Netbox 2.8, 2.9, 2.10, 2.11, 3.0.

System Requirements

You will need to install the django3-auth-saml2 into your Netbox environment.

Netbox Configuration

In the configuration.py you will need to enable and configure these REMOTE_AUTH_xxx options at a minimum:

REMOTE_AUTH_ENABLED = True
REMOTE_AUTH_BACKEND = 'utilities.auth_backends.RemoteUserBackend'
# For v2.8+:
# REMOTE_AUTH_BACKEND = 'netbox.authentication.RemoteUserBackend'
# For backends included with this plugin:
# REMOTE_AUTH_BACKEND = 'django3_saml2_nbplugin.backends.<Backend>'
REMOTE_AUTH_AUTO_CREATE_USER = True

You can also create the other options REMOTE_AUTH_DEFAULT_GROUPS and REMOTE_AUTH_DEFAULT_PERMISSIONS as described in the online docs.

Next you will need to configure this plugin, provding your specific configuraiton values as described in django3-okta-saml2 repo, for example:

PLUGINS = ['django3_saml2_nbplugin']

PLUGINS_CONFIG = {
    'django3_saml2_nbplugin': {

        # Use the Netbox default remote backend
        'AUTHENTICATION_BACKEND': REMOTE_AUTH_BACKEND,

        # Custom URL to validate incoming SAML requests against
        'ASSERTION_URL': 'https://netbox.company.com',

        # Populates the Issuer element in authn reques e.g defined as "Audience URI (SP Entity ID)" in SSO
        'ENTITY_ID': 'https://netbox.conpany.com/',

        # Metadata is required, choose either remote url
        'METADATA_AUTO_CONF_URL': "https://mycorp.okta.com/app/sadjfalkdsflkads/sso/saml/metadata",
        # or local file path
        'METADATA_LOCAL_FILE_PATH': '/opt/netbox/saml2.xml',

        # Settings for SAML2CustomAttrUserBackend. Optional.
        'CUSTOM_ATTR_BACKEND': {
            # See the note below about SAML attributes

            # Attribute containing the username. Optional.
            'USERNAME_ATTR': 'http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/emailaddress',
            # Attribute containing the user's email. Optional.
            'MAIL_ATTR': 'http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/emailaddress',
            # Attribute containing the user's first name. Optional.
            'FIRST_NAME_ATTR': 'http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/givenname',
            # Attribute containing the user's last name. Optional.
            'LAST_NAME_ATTR': 'http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/surname',
            # Set to True to always update the user on logon
            # from SAML attributes on logon. Defaults to False.
            'ALWAYS_UPDATE_USER': False,
            # Attribute that contains groups. Optional.
            'GROUP_ATTR': 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/ws/2008/06/identity/claims/groups',
            # Dict of user flags to groups.
            # If the user is in the group then the flag will be set to True. Optional.
            'FLAGS_BY_GROUP': {
                'is_staff': 'saml-group1',
                'is_superuser': 'saml-group2'
            },
            # Dict of SAML groups to NetBox groups. Optional.
            # Groups must be created beforehand in NetBox.
            'GROUP_MAPPINGS': {
                'saml-group3': 'netbox-group'
            }
        }
    }
}

Please note that METADATA_AUTO_CONF_URL and METADATA_LOCAL_FILE_PATH are mutually exclusive. Don't use both settings at the same time.

Attributes

Newer versions of pysaml2 uses an attribute map. For example, instead of http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/emailaddress in the configuration above, emailAddress should be used instead.

See here for details.

New Plugin URLs

This plugin will provide two new URLs to Netbox:

/api/plugins/sso/login/
This URLs redirects the User login to the SSO system (Okta) for authentication. This is the URL that needs to be used in the reverse-proxy redirect, for examlple see nginx.conf.

/api/plugins/sso/acs/
This URLs should be configured into your SSO system as the route to use to single-sign-on/redirection URL the User into Netbox after the User has authenticated with the SSO system.

Customizing on Create New User Configuration

If you want to customize the way a User is created, beyond what is provided by the Netbox REMOTE_AUTH variables, you can create a custom RemoteBackend class. See the samples in backends.py.

Using A Reverse Proxy Redirect

The use of this plugin requires a reverse-proxy URL redirect to override the default Netbox /login/ URL. There are two notes in this process:

1. You MAY need to disable port in redirect depending on your Netbox installation. If your Netbox server URL does not include a port, then you must disable port redirect. For example see nginx.conf.
2. You MUST add the ULR rewrite for the /login/ URL to use /plugins/sso/login/, for example nginx.conf.

Adding a SSO Login Button

Instead of using a reverse proxy redirect, you can add a SSO login button above the NetBox login form. This has the added benefit of allowing both local and SAML login options.

Add the following to your configuration.py:

BANNER_LOGIN = '<a href="/api/plugins/sso/login" class="btn btn-primary btn-block">Login with SSO</a>'