Hybrid Modern Authentication for Skype for Business
Published Dec 06 2017 11:41 AM 48K Views

Skype for Business Server (SfB) 2015 May 2017 cumulative update supports Hybrid Modern Authentication (HMA). To use HMA with your SfB on-premises, you will need to have on-premises Active Directory federated with Azure Active Directory (AAD). For more details, please see https://aka.ms/ModernAuthOverview.

Why would you want HMA? To enable SfB clients to obtain Access and Refresh Oauth tokens from AAD that SfB on-premises servers will accept and allow access. This sets the foundation for you to leverage AAD security capabilities like two-factor authentication, or Intune Modern Application Management policies. To learn more details on HMA, please take a pause and read  Deep Dive: How Hybrid Authentication Really Works.

Overview of Authentication Flow with Skype for Business

To understand what is needed for HMA to work, it’s helpful to understand the authentication flow. Let’s take a look at a common sign on scenario for hybrid SfB. In this scenario the user’s SfB and Exchange applications are on-premises and the user’s sip domain is Federated. Note that in an SfB hybrid configuration, all DNS records resolve to on-premises, therefore the authentication flow will always start there.HMASfB.pngIf the user’s SfB account is online, then after step 8, the authentication flow will continue like this:

  1. SfB on-premises validates the user and redirects user to online
  2. SfB online redirects client to AAD
  3. AAD gives client access token to SfB client
  4. Client gives client access token to SfB online
  5. User logged in to SfB and SfB certificate issued to the client.

After the client signs in to SfB the Exchange Web Services authentication flow will start.

HMA-EXO.png

If the user’s Exchange mailbox is online, then after step 16, the authentication flow will continue like this:

  1. Exchange on-premises redirects client to Exchange online
  2. Exchange online redirects client to AAD
  3. Client gives refresh token to AAD
  4. AAD gives client access token to the Skype client
  5. Client gives access token to Exchange online
  6. User logged in to Exchange

What you need to make this work

Bearing in mind the authentication flow, we need a few of things to make the Skype for Business authentication work:

  1. The SfB server needs to support HMA. Support for HMA is included in SfB server May 2017 CU5 release, build .281 or higher. 
  2. The SfB server configured to send authentication requests to Azure AAD. We do this in two steps:
    1. Configure evoSTS Oauth server
    2. Set the Oauth configuration to use this server
  3. SfB clients support Modern Authentication. For SfB 2016 clients, this capability will be on by default. For SfB 2013 clients, a registry entry will be required; please see https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Enable-Modern-Authentication-for-Office-2013-on-Windows-dev... for details.
  4. Azure AAD needs to accept authentication requests from SfB clients. Since the clients will be making these requests for authentication using the on-premises web service URL’s, you need to configure these web service URL’s as Service Principal Names (SPN’s) for your O365 tenant’s AAD SfB service application principal. The SPN’s need to be in the format of https://url as this is how the requests will be coming from the clients. Since clients can connect from either internal or external web service URL’s, depending on their network location, both need to be added. You need to do this for all SfB Front End (FE) servers deployed.
  5. One Office 365 tenant user must be assigned a Skype for Business license in order for the service principal for the Skype for Business workload to be created in Azure AD. This does not need to be an actual production user of Skype for Business online.
  6. User accounts must exist in AAD. 
  7. The SfB servers need to trust the AAD tokens presented by the clients. This means that all FE servers need direct Internet access to login.windows.net which will allow then to periodically retrieve the AAD certificate against which they will verify the tokens presented by clients.

    If a proxy is needed for internet access to your FE servers, you will need to take some extra steps.

     

    • Ensure FE servers can access whitelisted O365 URLs. If proxy servers require authentication, all internet traffic from FE server via proxy should be treated as un-authenticated. This is because all traffic to internet invoked by FE servers is under Network Service account context. There are few ways to configure proxy on servers
    • You can use netsh to configure the proxy IP and Port on each FE. Configuring netsh proxy will allow internet access to all users and services on Front-End servers:
      netsh winhttp set proxy IP:Port
    • If an organization wants to limit internet access to only SFB services, BITSAdmin can be leveraged to set proxy for the Network Service account only:
      https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/bitsadmin-util-and-s...
      bitsadmin /util /setieproxy networkservice MANUAL_PROXY proxysrv:8080 ";*.contoso.com"

    • We use .Net classes for HMA. On locked down servers or environments another way to enable proxy is via .Net proxy settings described here. This will only allow access to SFB web ticket service to complete authentication with O365 identity urls. You will need to add the proxy server IP and port to the internal and external web components configuration on each FE. Do this by inserting the following section just before the last line of the file </configuration> in both the internal and external web.config files on each FE (c:\program files\Skype for Business Server 2015\Web Components\Web ticket\int(or ext)\web.config):
      </system.identityModel.services>

             <system.net>

            <defaultProxy>

                         <proxy

                          proxyaddress="http://192.168.100.60:8080"

                          bypassonlocal="true"

                          />

             </defaultProxy>

             </system.net>

             </configuration>

How to enable Modern Authentication for SfB

For online, follow these instructions to enable your tenant for modern authentication.

For on-premises, we will cover the steps here, but for full details, please be sure to refer to these instructions How To Configure Skype for Business On-Premises for Hybrid Modern Authentication.

Before configuring HMA, you first collect details for your on-premises SfB web service URL's as follows:

  1. Login to SfB Front End or Management server where SfB core components are installed.
  2. Open PowerShell, or SfB Management Shell.
  3. Confirm CU5 or higher is installed with Get-CsServerPatchVersion and confirm the Front End is listed with 6.0.9319.281 or higher. 
  4. Obtain web service URL's with Get-CsService -WebServer | Select-Object PoolFqdn, InternalFqdn, ExternalFqdn | FL. [If you any Standard Edition servers are installed, the InternalFQDN will be blank. In this case the Pool FQDN will be used for the InternalFQDN needed to define the SPN for these servers.]
  5. You will need to add https:// to the front of the pool FQDN's and "/" at the end. For example, for FQDN of lswebext01.contoso.com, the SPN will be defined as https://lswebext01.contoso.com/

Next, configure the SPN's for the SfB Service Principal in Azure AD:

  1. First, connect to AAD with these instructions.
  2. Then run the following being sure to replace sample SPN's with your actual SPN's 
    Connect-AzureAD
    $SfBAppID= "00000004-0000-0ff1-ce00-000000000000"
    $SfBServicePrincipal = Get-AzureADServicePrincipal -Filter "appid eq '$SfBAppId'"
    $SfBServicePrincipal.ServicePrincipalNames.Add("https://lswebint01.contoso.com/")
    $SfBServicePrincipal.ServicePrincipalNames.Add("https://lswebext01.contoso.com/")
    Set-AzureADServicePrincipal -ObjectId $($SfBServicePrincipal.ObjectId) -ServicePrincipalNames $($SfBServicePrincipal.ServicePrincipalNames) -Verbose
  3. Then confirm you have the SPN's configured correctly with: 
    Get-AzureADServicePrincipal -Filter "appid eq '$SfBAppId'" | select -ExpandProperty ServicePrincipalNames

Before proceeding with enabling SfB for HMA:

  1. Run the following from SfB on-premises Management Shell and make note of the current configuration as you may have it set to use on-premises Modern Authentication for SfB using on-premises ADFS server for the Oauth Server:
    Get-CsOauthConfiguration
  2. Be sure that you have triple checked your SPN’s, Client configuration, FE internet access, and SfB version. If the SfB version is not CU5 (.281) or higher, authentication will fail. 

Now you're ready to configure your SfB on-premises to use Office 365 Azure AD STS URL (a/ka/ EvoSTS) for Oauth tokens. 

  1. Create the EvoSTS Oauth Server:
    New-CsOAuthServer -Identity evoSTS -MetadataUrl https://login.windows.net/common/FederationMetadata/2007-06/FederationMetadata.xml -AcceptSecurityIdentifierInformation $true -Type AzureAd
  2. Cut over to HMA by setting SfB Oauth configuration to use the EvoSTS Oauth Server:
    Set-CsOAuthConfiguration -ClientAuthorizationOAuthServerIdentity evoSTS

If you run into a problem and need a quick escape route, simply run Set-CsOAuthConfiguration -ClientAuthorizationOAuthServerIdentity and configure the Oauth server to how it was set previously.

Exchange Web Services

To avoid additional prompts for authentication against Exchange Web Services, you will also need to configure Exchange for Modern Authentication. For details on Exchange, please refer to this blog on hybrid modern authentication for exchange on premises. Note that Modern Authentication is enabled for Exchange online by default. 

What can go wrong

During testing of HMA for SfB, two common errors appeared:

  1. SPN’s missing or incorrectly configured. We did this too during testing because we fat fingered an entry. Hint – use copy and paste!
  2. The FE servers were not able to verify the oauth token presented by clients because they could not access login.windows.net. This typically occurs when FE servers need proxy access to the Internet.

How can you prevent these errors from happening to you?

First double check that you have configured all SPN's in Azure AD for internal and external web service URL's for all deployed SfB pool authentication servers, Front Ends and Directors following instructions above. 

Second, confirm the web browser settings on FE’s do not have proxy settings and that the servers have direct access to https://login.windows.net. If the FE’s do require a proxy, follow the instructions above for configuring the web components with the proxy IP and port.

Troubleshooting

If you run into problems and are at a loss for what went wrong, then taking an HTTPS decrypted trace with Fiddler, or a similar tool, can assist in pinpointing the issue. If you have not used Fiddler before, then be sure to read the guidance on the Fiddler site for how to configure it to capture a decrypted HTTPs trace.

If you have ADFS configured for a federated domain, then be sure to set Fiddler to Skip decryption for the ADFS sign in URL defined in your deployment before capturing SfB Sign in. This is set in the HTTPS tab in Fiddler options. If you miss this step, then sign in will fail as ADFS default security for enhanced token protection will detect the Fiddler HTTPS certificate and prevent the authentication process from occurring.

Once Fiddler is installed and configured, sign out of the SfB Client, delete the sign in info, then start the Fiddler capture and sign back into the SfB client.

Oauth Policy

If SfB sever has Oauth setup correctly, you should find the Oauth_Policy in the 200 Post to the SfB Server pool web service as follows:

<wsp:Policy wsu:Id="OAuth_policy">

<wsp:ExactlyOne>

<wsp:All>

<af:OAuth af:authorizationUri="https://login.windows.net/common/oauth2/authorize" xmlns:af="urn:component:Microsoft.Rtc.WebAuthentication.2010" />

<af:Binding xmlns:af="urn:component:Microsoft.Rtc.WebAuthentication.2010" />

<sp:TransportBinding xmlns:sp="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/07/securitypolicy">

<wsp:Policy>

If you do not see this policy, then confirm your SfB server Oauth Configuration by running the following two cmdlets in SfB Management shell and confirm the output matches the expected configuration per our documentation.

  • Get-CsOauthServer
  • Get-CsOauthConfiguration

Problems with SPN’s

If the SPN’s are missing or incorrectly configured, then the Fiddler trace will show a 302 response back from login.microsoftonline.com with information that “The application named ‘https://webserviceURL’ was not found in the tenant named…”

In this case, you will want to connect to the MsolService and run the Get-MsolServicePrincipal -AppPrincipalId 00000004-0000-0ff1-ce00-000000000000 cmdlet to confirm the SPN’s configured. The devil is in the details so be sure that the problem is not a simple typo. Remember, use copy/paste!

FE Connectivity to Login.Windows.Net

If you suspect FE connectivity, you may need to run a CLS logging trace on your SfB FE pool(s). Use the UCWA scenario which includes the WebInfrastructure components for tracing. When you obtain the results search for JwtSecurityToken. If the FE server cannot connect to login.windows.net, the logs will show the request but not the response for retrieving the mex data for: https://login.windows.net/common/FederationMetadata/2007-06/FederationMetadata.xml.

Summary

Take your time, cross your t’s, dot your i’s and get ready for a more secure and seamless sign on experience for your SfB users.

FAQ

  1. What happens if the client doesn't support Oauth? If the client doesn't support Oauth, authentication will fail back to NTLM and the user will be prompted for their password in the SfB client. Fallback to NTLM will occur whenever Oauth fails as long as the administrator has not disabled NTLM authentication in SfB. 
  2. What happens if a user's account is not synchronized with Azure AD? Again, authentication will failback to NTLM.  

PowerShell Script

To automate collection of URL's and creation on SPN's in Azure AD. 

Script to Configure - Run on SfB Management server or Front End

## Requirements to run this script:

## Run from SfB Management Shell with read permissions to SfB configuration

## Azure AD PowerShell installed (Install-Module AzureAD)

## Office 365 Global Tenant Administrative Permissions

 

## Script Overview

## First the script will obtain SfB internal and external web service urls

## Second use these URL's to create the required Service Principal Names in the SfB Service Prinicpal in Azure in the Office 365 Tenant

 

## Obtain SfB web service URL's and return to array variable

 

$WebServices = Get-CsService -WebServer

$WebServicesFqdns = $WebServices | foreach {$_.ExternalFqdn.tostring()}

$WebServicesFqdns += $WebServices | foreach {

    if ($_.InternalFqdn -ne $null)

    {$_.InternalFqdn.tostring()}

    else

    {$_.PoolFqdn.tostring()}

 

## Connect to AzureAD. DO NOT specify -Credential parameter. This will call Windows's native sign in dialog, where you can select and sign in with whatever method is required by your organization.

 

Connect-AzureAD

 

# Get/update ServicePrincipal in memory and Update SPN if it doesn't already exist

$SfBAppId = "00000004-0000-0ff1-ce00-000000000000"

$SfBServicePrincipal = Get-AzureADServicePrincipal -Filter "appid eq '$SfBAppId'"

   

foreach ($WebServicesFqdn in $WebServicesFqdns)

{

    If ($SfBServicePrincipal.ServicePrincipalNames.Contains("https://$webServicesFqdn/")) {continue}

    $SfBServicePrincipal.ServicePrincipalNames.Add("https://$WebServicesFqdn/")

}

 

Set-AzureADServicePrincipal -ObjectId $($SfBServicePrincipal.ObjectId) -ServicePrincipalNames $($SfBServicePrincipal.ServicePrincipalNames) -Verbose

   

# Confirm SPNs

Get-AzureADServicePrincipal -Filter "appid eq '$SfBAppId'" | select -ExpandProperty ServicePrincipalNames

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‎Nov 25 2019 05:18 AM