User-ID with Azure AD

[GOMEZZZ]

Hello,

We have PC's that are only registered inside Azure AAD and managed via Intune they have no connection to the on-prem AD and are connecting via a Wifi zone behind PA to the internet.  How can i determine the USER id, without user interaction.

Or do i need Global protect for this and SSO?

Is there someting like a User ID agent for Azure AAD.

Or maybe i can use SAML SSO with Azure AAD for captive portal, can somebody point me to a good article on how to configure this.

[jhochberg]

Hello,

Thanks for your question! This is an awesome use-case however, it's not one that we natively support at this time. There are other customers that have expressed interest in this capability.

If there's a chance you're running in a hybrid mode and have a Windows Server running AD and synchronizing with Azure AD then, of course, you can use the User-ID agent to communicate with the domain controller. SAML authentication works great with GlobalProtect, but it is not intended for use with User-ID.

If you'd like, you can contact me directly (email is first initial last name - no spaces or hyphens [at] paloaltonetworks[dot]com and provide me with your contact information, I'd be happy to add you to the enhancement request list.

Thanks for reaching out!

Best regards,

-JeffH

Jeff Hochberg | Sr. Systems Engineer - Technical Business Development

Palo Alto Networks | Atlanta, GA |  USA

Mobile: 404.432.1112 | www.paloaltonetworks.com

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[GOMEZZZ]

Hi Jeff,

I have dropped you an e-mail with my contact details.  To get around this limitation i could maybe user a captive portal and SAML SSO?

In my case these user are all on a seperate segment.

I will have to test this out.  

Never the less  integrating User-ID with Azure AAD would be a good enhancement.

[GOMEZZZ]

Hi Jeff,

Any idea if this i a feature that will be introduced or palo alto is considering this?

[bwagstheitguy]

I'm in the same boat as FDEMUYTER - all machines being managed via AzureAD/Azure Intune without any AD infra to speak of ( not in Hybrid ). Having to enter a userID kind of breaks the SSO experience IMO. Hoping there is a better way to do this.  

[GOMEZZZ]

Hi.

what you could to to get the user id is use global protect client with SAML authentication to azure.

You can connect to internal or external portal and use always on. 

[Trond.Olsen]

Hi. Have there been any updates regarding direct integration with Azure AD? We are looking to move to SaaS infrastructure.

[GOMEZZZ]

Hi Olson,

No user-id agent for azure directly but you can solve this issue by using global protect and SAML authentication.

It depends on what you need and what is your use-case.

What do you want to accomplish in the end?

You can also look into Prisma.

[Trond.Olsen]

Hi there

We are currently using UserID in schools to implement internet filtering during exams. The number of students far exceed our VPN tunnel capacity in our Palo Alto firewall so we can't use Globalprotect either. Another issue with Azure AD mentioned elsewhere is that you'll see the public NAT IP externally, so maybe UserID isn't an option at all? Maybe we have to look at alternativ implementation in our Cisco wifi solution.

[GOMEZZZ]

Hi Olsen,

If you are using Cisco ISE you could try forwarding you logs to a palo alto user id agent configured as a syslog listener.

https://docs.paloaltonetworks.com/pan-os/8-1/pan-os-admin/user-id/map-ip-addresses-to-users/configur...

I have not tried it myself but was also something i was thinking about. 

Another thing you could to is use an internal portal only without creating a tunnel but only for authentication. This is called a non-tunnel mode gateway. (always on configuration)

https://docs.paloaltonetworks.com/globalprotect/8-0/globalprotect-admin/globalprotect-gateways/globa...

This will require you to deploy global protect to all your clients.

This solution will give you the most accurate solution I think.

I am assuming all your users and computer are in azure ad only? How are your users authenticated on the WIFI?

[Trond.Olsen]

These are good suggestions! I wasn't aware that Globalprotect could be used for autentication only though license might be an issue with iPad and Chromebook. We might get some consulant advice on Cisco ISE as we discarded it some years ago because concerns around complexity.

Concerning Azure AD we plan to remove our on-premise AD entirely.

[GOMEZZZ]

Hi,

There are different options for your problem but moving everything to the cloud will need carefull planning and decisions up front.

A good read is also:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory-domain-services/compare-identity-solutions

Also please have a look into Prisma if you are moving to full cloud.

[wburnett]

I think the bigger picture here needs to be put into perspective:

• Microsoft is doing everything that they can do to prevent small business from having any on-site servers or services. This includes breaking most file server functions for office, in favor of one-drive, etc. 
• Hybrid AD deployments are a disaster for SMB - Why have an AD server on-site that does nothing but remote accounts locally when inTune does as much or more than ADGP when it comes to SMB needs.
• With COVID and general WFH and BYOD fewer PCs than ever are physically connected to an AD and forcing VPN connectivity just for policy and password management updates is kind of insane when Office and everything else Microsoft is not communicating with O365.

I find it almost imperative that the LOCAL firewall policy be able apply rules based on AzureAd membership - be it User-ID or some other SSO method. I can tell you that almost every one of my SMB customers is already, or will be completely server-less by the end of the year and all will be AzureAD/Intune managed. 

There has to be a better way to put 10-50 users into policy based filtering than hydribd-AD or forcing a VPN connection from the same office that the firewall resides in. That is just insane, especially seeing that often, another VPN is used by client PCs to connect to various SaaS endpoints or hosted services. 

This is the new SMB model and Palo Alto really needs to embrace it quickly.

[trlawren]

I agree, this is something that we are planning for in the near future. Palo Alto needs to come up with a solution very quickly.

[wburnett]

Crickets...

Hello Palo Alto -- care to comment about this?