Security Association Markup Language (SAML) is used to simplify authentication services and allow for single sign-on operations.
SAML allows users to authenticate with the identity provider one time using a single set of credentials; they then get access to multiple applications and services without any additional sign-ins. SAML-enabled applications delegate authentication to an external identity provider (IdP), and AWS can automatically grant, revoke, or change a user’s access to applications and services when an administrator adds, removes, or modifies the user’s information in the IdP.
AWS offers SAML solutions to authenticate your internal users, outside contractors, and partners to AWS accounts and applications. SAML can be enabled for your mobile and web applications as well. It is a common user case to grant temporary access to services such as an S3 bucket to a user instead of having them log in to AWS.
The IAM SAML 2.0 identity provider is an entity in IAM that defines external IdP services that support the SAML 2.0 standard.
The IAM identity provider service is used to establish a trust relationship between an SAML-compatible IdP, such as Microsoft’s Active Directory Federation Services and AWS. This enables users defined in Active Directory to access AWS resources with a single sign-on.
The identity federation establishes a trust relationship between AWS and an external system to authenticate users and receive the required rights to access AWS resources.
Once a user is authenticated, the IdP sends AWS a message, called an assertion, that contains the user’s sign-in name and other attributes that IAM needs to create a user and to determine the AWS resources they are allowed to access.
Other identity applications in addition to SAML include Open ID Connect (OIDC) and OAuth 2.0.
Since most enterprises have existing Active Directory implementations, it is advantageous to integrate AD into AWS to simplify management and ongoing operations. The Microsoft Active Directory is a database and service used to connect users to network services and resources. The database, known as Active Directory, stores data about your environment including usernames and authentication and authorization credentials that manage user access and rights.
The domain controller is the Active Directory server that responds to authentication requests and stores a replica of the AD database. An AD site represents a physical or logical object that is defined in the domain controller. Every site is associated with an Active Directory domain that includes IP definitions for what IP addresses and blocks belong to that site. The domain controllers use this information to inform clients about proximity to the nearest domain controllers. The global catalog server is a Microsoft domain controller that stores partial copies of all forest Active Directory objects but stores a complete copy of all objects in the directory of your domain and a partial copy of all objects of all other forest domains.
The AD trust, or trust relationship, acts as a logical relationship established between Active Directory domains that allow authentication and authorization to shared services and resources. The Flexible Single Master Operation (FSMO) role in Active Directory is where critical updates are performed by the designated domain controller with a specific role and then get replicated to all the other DCs. These roles are assigned by the AD administrator to perform these tasks. You can also implement read-only domain controllers (RODCs). The read-only domain controllers hold a copy of the AD database and are used to respond to authentication requests, but applications or other servers cannot write to them.
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