(v23) Symphony Supported Authentication Tools

Symphony Supported Authentication Tools

This applies to: Visual Data Discovery

Symphony supports several approaches to authenticating users. Your organization must choose the best approach given your existing constraints and objectives.

• Symphony provides basic login access to the Symphony application. See Authorize Symphony Access.

• X.509 client certificate authentication can be used to provide single sign-on capabilities, although it does not support auto-provisioning of user accounts. See Configure Client Certificate Authentication.

• SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) can be used to provide single sign-on capabilities. See Configure Symphony to Support SAML.

• Kerberos can be used to provide single sign-on capabilities. See Configure Kerberos Single Sign-On (SSO) Settings.

• Trusted Access can be used to allow for machine-to-machine authorization of Symphony resources when embedded in your application. It allows users to log in once to the parent application and yet have their security information propagated to Symphony, creating a seamless and secure user experience. See Trusted Access.

  Note: insightsoftware recommends using Trusted Access for all embed-related workflows.

• LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) can be used to enable directory-based access to Symphony. Symphony can connect to an organization’s Active Directory (AD) and OpenLDAP directory services using configured LDAP settings. See Use Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) With Symphony.

Symphony supervisors can enable or disable Symphony's authentication services as required. The available services are listed on the Security Services tab:

1. Log in as the supplied admin user (System Administrator).

2. Select Tools > Security from the main menu.

   The Security page appears. It consists of four tabs: Security Services, SAML Settings, LDAP Settings, and Kerberos Settings. The Security Services tab is selected. Note that the SAML Settings, LDAP Settings, and Kerberos Settings tabs are accessible only when the corresponding service is enabled on the Security Services tab.

Settings for x.509 and Kerberos SSO authentication are handled using the zoomdata.properties file.

Enabling or disabling any of these security services requires a restart of the Symphony service. Basically, any time you switch a security feature, the Symphony service needs to be restarted before the change takes effect. The following switch status may appear for each of the authentication services: Started, Stopped, Will start or stop on next restart. See Enable or Disable a Security Service.

When working with security authentication services, bear in mind that you cannot use them all at the same time. If you switch a particular security service on, others will become disabled. If you want to use a security service that is disabled, you must switch the running services off and then start the service you want. The following table describes the compatibility of the security services.

Security Service	Can Be Used With
x.509	LDAP, Trusted Access
SAML SSO	Trusted Access
Kerberos	LDAP, Trusted Access
Trusted Access	SAML, LDAP, Kerberos, x.509
LDAP	Kerberos, x.509, Trusted Access