Auth0 Single Sign-On for AI Research Collaboration Portals

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

Single Sign-On (SSO) is a user authentication service that allows a user to use one set of login credentials (e.g., name and password) to access multiple applications. In the context of AI Research Collaboration Portals, implementing SSO can help streamline access to various tools and resources that researchers may need, providing a smooth and secure user experience.

To set up Auth0 Single Sign-On for an AI Research Collaboration Portal using Pulumi, we can utilize a few resources from the Auth0 provider in Pulumi. Here's how you can do it step by step:

1. **Auth0 Custom Domain**: Having a custom domain for your SSO helps maintain brand consistency and trust. You'll need to set one up in Auth0 and verify it.
2. **Auth0 Client**: This represents an application in Auth0. It's where you'll configure the basics of your SSO, including allowed callback URLs for authentication responses, allowed web origins, and more.
3. **Auth0 Connection**: This resource configures a connection in Auth0. A connection is a source of users, such as a database, social provider, or enterprise federation.
4. **Auth0 User**: To test your SSO, you can create a user in Auth0 programmatically. Typically, for a real-world scenario, users will self-register or will be pulled from an existing user directory.

The following Pulumi program in Python sets up these resources:

```python
import pulumi
import pulumi_auth0 as auth0

# Replace these variables with actual values.
domain_name = "your-custom-domain.com"
client_name = "AI-Research-Portal"
connection_name = "Username-Password-Authentication"
test_user_email = "testuser@example.com"
test_user_password = "SuperSecretPassword123!"

# Configure the Auth0 custom domain.
custom_domain = auth0.CustomDomain("customDomain",
    domain=domain_name,
    type="auth0_managed_certs",
    tls_policy="recommended")

# Configure the Auth0 client for your AI Research Collaboration Portal.
client = auth0.Client("client",
    name=client_name,
    description="Client for AI Research Collaboration Portal",
    app_type="regular_web",
    callbacks=["https://portal.example.com/callback"],
    allowed_origins=["https://portal.example.com"],
    web_origins=["https://portal.example.com"],
    sso=True)

# Configure the Auth0 connection.
connection = auth0.Connection("connection",
    name=connection_name,
    strategy="auth0",
    options=auth0.ConnectionOptionsArgs(
        password_policy="fair",
        disable_signup=False  # Set to True to disable sign-ups if you're managing users another way.
    ))

# Create a test user in Auth0 to test the SSO setup.
user = auth0.User("testUser",
    connection_name=connection.name,
    email=test_user_email,
    password=test_user_password,
    email_verified=True) # Typically, you wouldn't set this to True programmatically.

# Export the custom domain verification status and client id.
pulumi.export("custom_domain_status", custom_domain.status)
pulumi.export("client_id", client.client_id)
```

Here's what each part of the program does:
- The `auth0.CustomDomain` resource sets up a custom domain with managed certificates (`auth0_managed_certs`), and the recommended TLS policy.
- The `auth0.Client` resource creates a new client/application in your Auth0 account with name `AI-Research-Portal`, where you define the allowed callback and web origins (substitute `https://portal.example.com` with your actual AI Research Portal domain).
- The `auth0.Connection` resource configures a new database connection for username and password authentication.
- The `auth0.User` resource creates a test user that you can use to verify that your SSO setup works as expected.

Once you have your Pulumi program ready, you would run it using the Pulumi CLI, which would set up everything in your Auth0 account based on the configuration you provided. To further customize your configuration, refer to [Auth0's Pulumi Provider documentation](https://www.pulumi.com/registry/packages/auth0/api-docs/).

Before running this program, make sure you have the Pulumi CLI installed and Auth0 provider configured with your Auth0 domain and management client credentials.

Keep in mind in a production environment, user management would be handled differently. You might integrate with an existing user directory, or use a more complex method of managing and authenticating users. This program is a starting point to give you an idea of how to use Pulumi for setting up SSO with Auth0.