Restricting Directory synchronization to Organization Unit

The default configuration of Azure Active directory connector will take all objects in all domains in the forest to synchronize with Azure Active Directory tenant. In fact, this recommended configuration will facilitate access to the complete Global Address List. With this, the end user using cloud services such as Exchange Online and Skype will have same experience of an on-premises implementation.

In some cases, you may have the requirement of synchronizing only a specific set of users. For instance, the management decision to restrict the cloud service to only users from sales department. In this case you need select users from Sales OU only (assuming the users are in their respective department OUs). In other scenario where you do not want to synchronize the service accounts which are used for only on-premises service.

With filtering you can control which objects should appear in Azure Active Directory from your on-premises directory. Selecting only the required objects for synchronization will provide more security by reducing the surface area attacks. Filtering can also help to limit the number of objects, which can keep the Azure Active Directory Sync database small enough to use the default SQL Express Local Database.

Following are the filtering options which can be applied to the Azure Directory Synchronization tool:

• Domain based: This option allows selection of the domains to synchronize to Azure AD, this will include all object types in the selected Domain(s).
• Organizational Unit based: This option allows selection of the OUs which will synchronize to Azure AD, this will include all object types in the selected in selected OU(s).
• Attribute based: This option allows to filter objects based on attribute values on the objects.

You can use a combination of the above filtering options available. When multiple filtering options are used, the tool will use a logical “and” condition among the filters.

In this post, we will be describing the steps used in configuring the OU based filtering.

First of all, we will disable the “Azure AD Sync Scheduler” from the local task scheduler. This will eliminate the risk of accidentally synchronizing the objects which we have not yet verified.

Start Task Scheduler from the start menu.

Directly under Task Scheduler Library find the task named Azure AD Sync Scheduler, right-click and select Disable.

 

Configuring Organizational Unit based filtering

To configure organizational-unit–based filtering, perform the following steps:

Logon to the server that is running Azure AD Connect sync tool using an account that is a member of the ADSyncAdmins security group.

Start Synchronization Service from the start menu.

Select Connectors and in the Connectors list, select the Connector with the type Active Directory Domain Services. From Actions select Properties.

Click Configure Directory Partitions, select the domain you want to configure, and then click Containers.

When prompted, provide any credentials with read access to your on-premises Active Directory. It does not have to be the user which is pre-populated in the dialog box.

In the Select Containers dialog box, clear the OUs that you don’t want to synchronize with the cloud directory, When you are done, close the Properties dialog by clicking OK.

Now the filter is applied, do not forget to enable the “Azure AD Sync Scheduler” from the local task scheduler.

Notice that only the objects under the selected Organization Unit gets synchronized to the Azure tenant.

Enabling Multi-Factor Authentication in Azure

Azure Multi-factor authentication is a method of validating who you are, which involves the use of more than one verification methods. It provides an additional layer of security to user authentication and transactions.

Azure Multi-Factor Authentication helps to safeguard access to data and applications. It delivers strong authentication with a range of easy verification options such as phone call, text message, or mobile app notification. It also allows users to choose the method they prefer.

 

To Enable Multi-Factor Authentication, logon to the Azure management portal (http://manage.windowsazure.com)

 

Click on Active Directory and select your Directory Services.

Navigate to the Configure tab of your directory and scroll down until you see the multi-factor authentication section

Click on the manage service settings link. This will open the multi-factor authentication administration portal.

At the bottom of the first page, select the checkbox Allow users to suspend Multi-Factor Authentication by remembering their devices and keep the default set to 14 days.

This will allow the user to remember a device when using MFA. Which means the second factor of authentication is not prompted for unless they come from an unknown device.

Keep everything else set to defaults.

Click the Save button to commit your changes.

Once the operation completes, click the Close button to go back to the MFA administrative portal.

Now, enable the user account in your organization for MFA. Click on the USERS tab in the left top corner of the screen.

Click the check mark next to your user account you wanted to enable, then click the enable link on the far right hand side of the screen to enable MFA for this user.

When prompted for confirmation, click the enable multi-factor auth button.

Click Close on the Updates successful dialog when it appears.

The user account is now enabled for multi-factor authentication.

Next time the user signs in, he/she will be asked to provide and confirm the authentication information that will be used to perform MFA from that point onwards.

 

Register as a User for MFA

Once the MFA is enabled for the user, the user has to register himself for the multi-method of authentication verification.

When the user logs on to his application portal ( https://myapps.microsoft.com ) for the first time since the administrator has enabled MFA, After the user is authenticated the user is asked to provide additional security information: Your admin has required that you set up this account for additional security verification.

Click on the Set it up now button.

On the next page, you can choose among 3 contact methods:

• Authentication phone
• Office phone
• Mobile app

Select the Authentication phone contact method

Select the method Send me a code by text message

Select your Country and enter your Mobile number to receive the authentication code. Then click on Contact me

Enter the 6-digit code that you received on the next screen and click the Verify button.

In the additional security verification page, app password will be displayed. This password can be used instead of performing multi-factor authentication to access the application which is not MFA aware.

Click on Done to complete the MFA registration process.

You can always get back to it later by going to http://aka.ms/mfasetup.

You are done! The user will be prompted for MFA from now on whenever he/she sign in.

Once you click on Done to complete the MFA registration, the browser will refresh and bring back to the sign in page, Enter the 6-digit text message that is sent again to your phone.

 

Notice the checkbox Don’t ask again for 14 days, this option allows Azure to remember the device in the future so that it does not prompt you for MFA the next time your sign-in.

This is the same configuration option we enabled earlier with the Azure admin account.

 

Enabling additional MFA capabilities.

The above described MFA capabilities are included as part of the Office 365 license. we can utilize the Azure AD Premium license to leverage additional MFA capabilities such as Custom greetings, Fraud alert, Event Confirmation, Block/Unblock Users, Security Reports etc…

In order to configure these capabilities, click on ACTIVE DIRECTORY in the left navigation bar of the Azure administrative portal and select your directory where you have enabled Azure AD Premium licenses for users.

Click on USERS and then click on MANAGE MULTI-FACTOR AUTH at the bottom of the page.

Click on Service Settings and then click on Go to Portal at the bottom of the page

The following page will appear where you can configure advanced settings and also access Azure MFA reports.

 

 

Publishing web based Intranet applications using Azure AD Application Proxy.

Azure AD Application Proxy is a new feature available in Azure AD Premium and Azure AD Basic. This is a type of reverse proxy solution that enables access to web-based applications that exist on a corporate network, secured behind a corporate firewall.

The advantage of using Azure AD Application Proxy over the traditional firewall publishing application to the external users are:

• The application can leverage the enhanced security of Azure AD pre-authentication in addition to enable Azure Multifactor authentication.
• The corporate applications can be listed under user’s Azure application access panel or Office 365 menu.
• The users can access all internal web-based applications as well as 3rd party SaaS applications from the same place.
• Once the user logs on to Azure Active directory or O365, he/she can launch the assigned applications without login on to these applications individually.

Prerequisites:

There are a few requirements need to be met in order to run Azure AD Application Proxy, such as:

• One domain-joined Windows Server 2012 R2 or Windows 8.1 or higher on premises is required to install the Azure AD Application Proxy Connector. This server must be able to send HTTPS requests to the Application Proxy services in the cloud and to the web applications you intend to publish. The connector installed on multiple server is recommended as best practice to avoid single point of failure.
• Along with the Azure AD Application Proxy Connector Server, there are several firewall ports that must be opened externally. A detailed list of those ports can be found here: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/active-directory-application-proxy-enable/

This post illustrates how to publish a web based Intranet application using Azure AD Application Proxy.

Setup requirements:

• Working URL (http://websrv01:8080) of the intranet web application (for this post, I have created a simple web page in IIS running on my web server WebSrv01.
• Active Azure Active Directory subscription and access to the Azure Management Portal.

Adding the Application

Browse to the Azure Management Portal https://manage.windowsazure.com and Click Active Directory tab.

Select the directory in which you enabled Application Proxy and for which you want to publish an application (for example, Contoso).

Click on the arrow to get into the directory.

Browse to Applications and then click the ADD button at the bottom of the screen

Choose to Publish an application that will be accessible outside your network.

Name: Provide Name of the application

Internal URL: the URL used to access the web site locally from the intranet site. The application proxy connector uses this URL to access the application internally. (for example: http://websrv01:8080)

Preauthentication method: specify the authentication method to be used for the application

You have two options here:

Azure Active Directory – whenever user tries to access the application, application proxy will redirect the user to log in with Azure AD which will authenticate the user to ensure that the user has the necessary permissions for the directory and the application.

Pass through – No preauthentication is performed.

Ensure that the Application Proxy is enabled, if not, click on Enable Application Proxy.

 

Installing the Connector

Download the Azure AD Application Proxy Connector and install it on the web server or on a separate machine that has connectivity to the web server. Microsoft recommends to install the Application Proxy Connector on a separate dedicated server running on HA mode.

Click on the Download a Connector tab

 

accept the license terms and privacy agreement to download the connector.

Copy the downloaded connector to the dedicated server, in our case the Web Server itself

To install the connector, accept the license agreement and click on Install.

Enter credentials that has Global Admin permission on the Azure AD tenant and then click Sign in

After the setup is successful, click on Close to exit the installation wizard.

After the installation complete, go back to the created application and click on the view connector status

Make sure the status shows Active.

 

Assign Users

Since we chose to publish the application with Azure AD pre-authentication, we should assign the application to individual users or to groups.

Click on Assign Accounts

Chose Groups or user to assign permission. Click the ASSIGN button at the bottom of the screen.

Configure Additional Settings

Click on Configure to make additional configurations for the application.

Click on the UPLOAD LOGO button at the bottom of the screen to add custom logo for your application.

The External URL which is used to access the published application over the internet is displayed.

By default, applications are published by using the HTTPS protocol. The service will automatically redirect users who type the URL with HTTP.

Open a new session on your browser and logon to the user application access panel through https://myapps.microsoft.com/.

Notice the newly assigned application is appeared on the list of applications.

Click on the FlankerWeb icon to access the application.

The web page running on the internal web server is displayed.

 

 

Directory Synchronization using Azure AD Connect

In this post we will configure Directory integration between Azure Active Directory and Windows Server Active Directory using the Azure AD Connect Tool.

Integrating your on-premises directory services with Azure AD will allow users to take advantage of a common identity when accessing both your on-premises and your cloud environments. In other words, the Azure AD give you similar sign-on experience.

Synchronizing both the on-premises and cloud directories have the following benefits:

• The default option sync with the password hash which allows sign on to cloud resources based on Active Directory passwords.
• Users will be able to access Office 365, Intune, SaaS apps and third-party applications without having to remember and manage a separate set of credentials.
• The application developers can build solutions leveraging a common identity model, integrating into on-premises or Azure directory services for cloud-based applications

Let us look at some of the prerequisites:

• A dedicated member server(recommended) running Windows Server 2008 or later or a Domain Controller
• Internet access on the server installing Azure AD Connect
• Azure AD administrator account for the Azure tenant you wish to integrate with on-premises
• An enterprise administrator account for the on-premises active directory services which will be integrated to the Azure AD tenant.

Hardware requirements for Azure AD Connect

The table below shows the minimum requirements for the Azure AD Connect sync computer.

Number of objects in Active Directory	CPU	Memory	HDD
Fewer than 10,000	1.6 GHz	4 GB	70 GB
10,000–50,000	1.6 GHz	4 GB	70 GB
50,000–100,000	1.6 GHz	16 GB	100 GB
For 100,000 or more objects the full version of SQL Server is required
100,000–300,000	1.6 GHz	32 GB	300 GB
300,000–600,000	1.6 GHz	32 GB	450 GB
More than 600,000	1.6 GHz	32 GB	500 GB

Installing and configuring Azure AD Connect.

To get started using Azure AD Connect, download the latest version from the following link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=47594 to the server dedicated for Azure AD connector installation.

Double click on the downloaded installer (AzureADConnect.msi) to start installation.

On the Welcome page, click on agree to the license terms and privacy policy to continue.

Select the Use express settings. This is appropriate if you have a single forest and wish to configure the password synchronization.

In the next step, enter the Global Administrator credentials for the Azure tenant to connect the AD connector tool to the Azure Active directory.

The Global Administrator credentials are used to create a service account that will take care of the synchronization.

click Next to continue.

In the next page enter the On-premises Enterprise administrator credentials for the tool to connect to the on premises Active Directory service. The enterprise administrator credential is used only to create service account and grant proper permissions.

click Next to continue.

In the “Ready to configure” page, verify that the settings are the ones you intended before you click the checkbox to start the synchronization process after the configuration is complete.

As part of the configuration, the tool will install a local instance of SQL Express to support the sync process and the Sync service.

When the installation complete, you will get a confirmation page.

Wait for few minutes for the synchronization to take place, then logon your Azure portal and verify that all your accounts have been synchronized.

Notice that the directory integration tab under your tenant is showing ACTIVATED.

Select USERS under the tenant to verify that the user accounts in the on-premises active directory are displayed.

 

 

Azure Active Directory Configuration

In this post we will create an Azure Active Directory tenant, a tenant administrator and some users.
Create Azure Active Directory Tenant

logon to the Azure management portal (https://manage.windowsazure.com) using your Azure administrator account

Click on the New button

Choose the options as marked below

Select CUSTOM CREATE

Select Create new directory option, then provide a friendly name which will be displayed on the portal.

Make sure to choose a Unique Domain Name for your Directory, and then select your country or region. click on Tick mark to continue.

Under the Active Directory Tab, notice that the newly created Tenant is displayed.

 

Create Tenant Administrator Account

Go to the Azure AD tenant and select USERS.
Click on the ADD USER at the bottom of the screen.

Fill in the details of the User and click right arrow to go to the next section.

Select the Role you want to assign to the user. Since we are going to create Tenant administrator account, we will select Global Admin role.
Provide an alternate email address for recovery, you may use any email address here. This is required only if you select Global admin role.
Click on the box if you want to enable Multi-Factor Authentication
Click right arrow to go to the next section

Click on Create

Remember the initial password or click on the Copy icon to copy the password, you will be forced to reset the password during the initial login.

Open your browser and go to https://login.microsoftonline.com to login with the tenant administrator account.
Type in or paste the temporary password and click on Sign In.

Update the account with a strong permanent password.
Click on submit to complete login process.

You are successfully logged in to the newly created tenant with Global Administrator account privileges.

 

Create User Account

go back to the ADD USER steps mentioned above (click on ADD USER under Azure AD tenant, USERS tab)

Fill in the details of the user and select User under the Role and follow the wizard.