All Products
Search

This Product

    Resource Access Management:Overview of user-based SSO

    Document Center

    Resource Access Management:Overview of user-based SSO

    Last Updated:May 14, 2025

    If Alibaba Cloud and the identity management system of an enterprise work together to implement user-based single sign-on (SSO), Alibaba Cloud is the service provider (SP) and the enterprise is the identity provider (IdP). User-based SSO allows an employee of the enterprise to access Alibaba Cloud resources as a RAM user.

    Process

    After an administrator configures user-based SSO, Employee Alice can log on to the Alibaba Cloud Management Console. The following figure shows the procedure.

    用户SSO基本流程

    1. Alice uses a browser to log on to the Alibaba Cloud Management Console. Then, the Alibaba Cloud Management Console returns a Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) authentication request to the browser.

    2. The browser forwards the SAML authentication request to the IdP.

    3. Alice is prompted to log on to the IdP portal. After Alice logs on to the IdP portal, the IdP returns a SAML response to the browser.

    4. The browser forwards the SAML response to the SSO service.

    5. The SSO service verifies the digital signature in the SAML response based on the SAML mutual trust configuration to check the authenticity of the SAML assertion. Then, the SSO service maps the value of the NameID element in the SAML assertion to the RAM user.

    6. The SSO service returns the URL of the Alibaba Cloud Management Console to the browser.

    7. The browser redirects Alice to the Alibaba Cloud Management Console.

      Note

      In Step 1, Alice does not need to initiate the logon from Alibaba Cloud.Alice uses a browser to log on to the Alibaba Cloud Management Console. Then, the Alibaba Cloud Management Console returns a Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) authentication request to the browser. Instead, Alice can click the Alibaba Cloud logon URL in the IdP portal to send a SAML authentication request to the IdP.

    Configure user-based SSO

    Before you implement user-based SSO, you must establish trust between Alibaba Cloud and your IdP.

    1. Configure the IdP in the Alibaba Cloud Management Console to ensure that your IdP is trusted by Alibaba Cloud.

    2. Configure Alibaba Cloud as a trusted SAML SP and configure SAML assertions in your IdP to ensure that Alibaba Cloud is trusted by your IdP.

    3. After the IdP and Alibaba Cloud SAML settings are configured, you must create RAM users that correspond to the users in the IdP by using SDKs, CLIs, or the RAM console.

      For more information, see Create a RAM user.

    References

    The following examples describe how to implement user-based SSO between your enterprise services and Alibaba Cloud by using IdPs: