Two-Factor Authentication(2FA /MFA) for SonicWall SSL VPN
Secure remote access to SonicWALL Secure Remote Access SSL VPN with miniOrange two-factor authentication (2FA) is easy for end-users to enroll in and log into. It supports both SonicWALL SSL VPN-protected applications and SAML-based applications. With miniOrange offering more than 15+ multi-factor authentication methods such as OTP over SMS, TOTP tokens, OTP over Email, hardware tokens etc can always log in securely.
SonicWall VPN is a uniform security module for Windows, Mac, and Linux users that enables remote users to securely connect to the remote network, and provide easy access to the data and resources which help them securely run any application on the remote network. You can enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) for your SonicWall managed active directory to increase security level.
When you enable 2FA, your users enter their username and password (first factor) as usual, and they have to enter an authentication code (the second factor) which will be shared on your virtual or hardware MFA solution to get access to SonicWall VPN. At the same time, miniOrange MFA solution ensures that your corporate network is protected from unauthorized access and mobile security threats.
Be Cyber Insurance compliant with miniOrange MFA solution. Read More
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miniOrange MFA/2FA authentication for SonicWall SSL VPN Login
miniOrange accomplishes this by acting as a RADIUS server that accepts the username/password of the user entered as a RADIUS request and validates the user against the user store as Active Directory (AD). After the first level of authentication, miniOrange prompts the user with 2-factor authentication and either grants/revokes access based on the input by the user.
Primary authentication initiates with the user submitting his Username and Password for SonicWall SSL VPN.
User request acts as an authentication request to RADIUS Server(miniOrange).
miniOrange RADIUS server passes user credentials to validate against the credentials stored in AD (Active Directory) / Database.
Once the user's first level of authentication gets validated AD sends the confirmation to RADIUS Server.
Now miniOrange RADIUS Server asks for a 2-factor authentication challenge to the user.
Here user submits the response/code which he receives on his hardware/phone.
User response is checked at miniOrange’s RADIUS Server side.
On successful 2nd factor authentication the user is granted access to login.
Connect with any External Directories
miniOrange provides user authentication from various external directories such as miniOrange Directory, Microsoft AD, Microsoft Entra ID/LDAP, AWS Cognito and many more.
Go To Users >> Settings >> Authentication method for login and select RADIUS. Click on Configure.
Enter the IP address of the Primary RADIUS Server and the radius port 1812. If you are looking for a high availability setup for RADIUS servers, you can enter the details of the secondary server.
Enter the shared secret in the Shared Secret field. The alphanumeric Shared Secret can range from 1 to 31 characters in length. The shared secret is case sensitive. This Shared secret is used in an encryption process to obscure certain details in RADIUS messages such as user passwords.
Click on RADIUS Users tab. Select appropriate mechanism for setting user group membership. If you’re unsure, use RADIUS filter-Id attribute on RADIUS Server option and click on apply.
Log in to the SonicWall administrative interface.
Search Manage and go to Settings section under Users and click Configure Radius.
Click Add and then Enter the IP address of the Primary RADIUS Server and the radius port. Enter the RADIUS server shared secret in the Shared Secret field.
Add a local group in Sonicwall
Click the Add Group button to display the Add Group window.
On the Settings tab, type a user name into the Name field and it should be same as that of miniOrange which you got from Step1.
Optionally, you may select the Members go straight to the management UI on web login checkbox. This selection will only apply if this new group is subsequently given membership in another administrative group.
You may also select the Require one-time passwords checkbox to require SSL VPN users to submit a system-generated password for two-factor authentication. Users must have their email addresses set when this feature is enabled.
Click the Members tab to add users and other groups to this group.
Select the user or group from the Non-Members Users and Groups list and then click the right arrow -> button.
Click the VPN Access tab to configure which network resources VPN users (either GVC, NetExtender, or Virtual Office bookmarks) can access.
Select one or more networks from the Networks list and click the right arrow button (->) to move them to the Access List column. To remove the user’s access to a network, select the network from the Access List, and click the left arrow button (<-).
3. Configure Your User Directory
miniOrange provides user authentication from various external sources, which can be Directories (like ADFS, Microsoft Active Directory, Microsoft Entra ID, OpenLDAP, Google, AWS Cognito etc), Identity Providers (like Okta, Shibboleth, Ping, OneLogin, KeyCloak), Databases (like MySQL, Maria DB, PostgreSQL) and many more. You can configure your existing directory/user store or add users in miniOrange.
Note: You can follow this guide, if you want to configure Radius MFA with your users stored in Microsoft Entra ID using OAuth Password Grant.
Setup AD/LDAP as User Directory
Setup miniOrange as User Directory
Configure your existing directories such as Microsoft Active Directory, Microsoft Entra ID, OpenLDAP, etc.
Click on External Directories >> Add Directory in the left menu of the dashboard.
Select Directory type as AD/LDAP.
STORE LDAP CONFIGURATION IN MINIORANGE: Choose this option if you want to keep your configuration in miniOrange. If active directory is behind a firewall, you will need to open the firewall to allow incoming requests to your AD.
STORE LDAP CONFIGURATION ON PREMISE: Choose this option if you want to keep your configuration in your premise and only allow access to AD inside premises. You will have to download and install miniOrange gateway in your premise.
Enter LDAP Display Name and LDAP Identifier name.
Select Directory Type as Active Directory.
Enter the LDAP Server URL or IP Address against LDAP Server URL field.
Click on Test Connection button to verify if you have made a successful connection with your LDAP server.
In Active Directory, go to the properties of user containers/OU's and search for Distinguished Name attribute.
Enter the valid Bind account Password.
Click on Test Bind Account Credentials button to verify your LDAP Bind credentials for LDAP connection.
Search Base is the location in the directory where the search for a user begins. You will get this from the same place you got your Distinguished name.
Select a suitable Search filter from the drop-down menu. If you use User in Single Group Filter or User in Multiple Group Filter, replace the <group-dn> in the search filter with the distinguished name of the group in which your users are present. To use custom Search Filter select "Write your Custom Filter" option and customize it accordingly.
You can also configure following options while setting up AD. Enable Activate LDAP in order to authenticate users from AD/LDAP. Click on the Save button to add user store.
Here's the list of the attributes and what it does when we enable it. You can enable/disable accordingly.
Attribute
Description
Activate LDAP
All user authentications will be done with LDAP credentials if you Activate it
Sync users in miniOrange
Users will be created in miniOrange after authentication with LDAP
Fallback Authentication
If LDAP credentials fail then user will be authenticated through miniOrange
Allow users to change password
This allows your users to change their password. It updates the new credentials in your LDAP server
Enable administrator login
On enabling this, your miniOrange Administrator login authenticates using your LDAP server
Show IdP to users
If you enable this option, this IdP will be visible to users
Send Configured Attributes
If you enable this option, then only the attributes configured below will be sent in attributes at the time of login
Click on Save. After this, it will show you the list of User stores. Click on Test Connection to check whether you have enter valid details. For that, it will ask for username and password.
On Successful connection with LDAP Server, a success message is shown.
Click on Test Attribute Mapping.
Enter a valid Username. Then, click on Test. Mapped Attributes corresponding to the user are fetched.
After successful Attribute Mapping Configuration, go back to the ldap configuration and enable Activate LDAP in order to authenticate users from AD/LDAP.
Note: Below steps are used to enable one time or manual sync. To enable sync on scheduled basis, you should use LDAP gateway module. Read more and download the LDAP gateway module.
Go to Settings >> Product Settings in the Customer Admin Account.
Enable the "Enable User Auto Registration" option and click Save.
(Optional) To send a welcome email to all the end users that will be imported, enable the "Enable sending Welcome Emails after user registration" option and click Save.
From the Left-Side menu of the dashboard select Provisioning.
In Setup Provisioning tab select Active Directory in the Select Application drop-down.
Toggle the Import Users tab, click on Save button.
On the same section, switch to Import Users section.
Select Active Directory from the dropdown and click on the Import Users tab, to import all the users from Active Directory to miniOrange.
You can view all the Users you have imports by selecting Users >> User List from Left Panel.
All the imported users will be auto registered.
These groups will be helpful in adding multiple 2FA policies on the applications.
Here, fill the user details without the password and then click on the Create User button.
After successful user creation a notification message "An end user is added successfully" will be displayed at the top of the dashboard.
Click on Onboarding Status tab. Check the email, with the registered e-mail id and select action Send Activation Mail with Password Reset Link from Select Action dropdown list and then click on Apply button.
Now, Open your email id. Open the mail you get from miniOrange and then click on the link to set your account password.
On the next screen, enter the password and confirm password and then click on the Single Sign-On (SSO) reset password button.
Now, you can log in into miniOrange account by entering your credentials.
2. Bulk Upload Users in miniOrange via Uploading CSV File.
Navigate to Users >> User List. Click on Add User button.
In Bulk User Registration Download sample csv format from our console and edit this csv file according to the instructions.
To bulk upload users, choose the file make sure it is in comma separated .csv file format then click on Upload.
After uploading the csv file successfully, you will see a success message with a link.
Click on that link you will see list of users to send activation mail. Select users to send activation mail and click on Send Activation Mail. An activation mail will be sent to the selected users.
This step involves Importing the user group from the Active Directory and Provisioning them.
Go to Provisioning. Switch to Setup Provisioning tab and select Active Directory from Dropdown menu.
Select Group Provisioning/Deprovisioning tab, and toggle on Import Group option.
Enter the Base DN for group sync and click Save.
If you want to dynamically allocate users to the groups present in the miniOrange, then enable "Assign Users to groups"
Now switch to Import Groups option and select Active Directory from which you want to import your users.
Finally, click on Import button. Your group will be imported.
(The Active Directory Group Provisioning (Sync) setup is done. Now, whenever a user is created or modified in LDAP server and if the Assign Users to groups is enabled, then user group attribute from the LDAP server will be automatically synced and the user group will be assigned or changed accordingly in miniOrange.)
Select Groups >> Manage Groups from left panel.
Click on the Create Group button on the top.
Enter an appropriate Group Name and click on Create Group.
In this guide we have created a Group by name VPN_Group.
Assign various members to the group using the Assign User option associated with the group in the groups list.
Select the Users that are required to be assigned to this group. Then Select Assign to Group in Select Action Dropdown and click on Apply button.
These groups will be helpful in adding multiple 2FA policies on the applications.
4. Setup MFA for SonicWall SSL VPN
Note: You can follow this guide, if you want to customize and enroll MFA for end users.
Here, we will configure a policy for the User Group that we created in this step and associate it with the SonicWall SSL VPN VPN Application.
Click on Policies tab >> App Login Policy.
Click on Add Policy tab.
In Application section, select the RADIUS App that we configured earlier in Step 1.
Select the required User Group in Group Name and enter the Policy name.
In this guide, we will configure a Password Only policy for "VPN_Group", so that only the VPN_Group members can access VPN Services without a Second Factor.
Once done with the policy settings, click on Save to Add Policy.
5. Test SonicWall SSL VPN MFA
Select your IP address in SonicWall client and enter UserName and Password.
It will prompt you for 2 Factor code if you have enabled 2-factor authentication in miniOrange policy.
Enter your 2-Factor code and you should be connected to Sonicwall VPN.
Disconnection from GlobalProtect
Click on Disable, and you will be Disconnected from Sonicwall Globalprotect VPN .
Troubleshooting
How can I check RADIUS User audit logs in miniOrange admin dashboard?
Click on Reports >> Radius User Authentication Report.
Enter Enduser Identifier and Date range.
Click on Search.
How can I check the policy downloaded from the firewall is invalid or incomplete?
Login to the SonicWall Management Interface.
Navigate to Users | Local Users or Local Groups.
Configure the affected User or User's Group and click on VPN Access tab.
Add the necessary Address Objects or Address Groups for the User to be able to access the desired resources. Click OK.
Attempt to reconnect via Global VPN Client.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)?
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is an authentication method that requires the user to authenticate themselves for two or more factors, in order to gain access to company resources, applications, or a VPN (SonicWall SSL VPN in this case). Enabling Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) means that users need to provide additional verification factors apart from their username and passwords thus increasing the security of the organization's resources. Checkout more about Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) here.
Three common authentication methods for MFA security are:
Knowledge: Something that the user knows.
Possession: Something that the user possesses or has.
Inherence: Usually referred to a biometric factor.
Types of 2FA Authentication with RADIUS:
Depending on the VPN client, 2-factor authentication can take two forms..
VPN Clients that support RADIUS Challenge.
VPN Clients that do not support RADIUS Challenge.
What are different 2FA/MFA methods for SonicWall SSL VPN supported by miniOrange?
miniOrange supports multiple 2FA/MFA authentication methods for SonicWall SSL VPN secure access such as, Push Notification, Soft Token, Microsoft / Google Authenticator etc.
Authentication Type
Method
Supported
miniOrange Authenticator
Soft Token
miniOrange Push Notification
Mobile Token
Google Authenticator
Microsoft Authenticator
Authy Authenticator
SMS
OTP Over SMS
SMS with Link
Email
OTP Over Email
Email with Link
Call Verification
OTP Over Call
Hardware Token
YubiKey Hardware Token
Display Hardware Token
How to change the RADIUS authentication scheme from MS-CHAP /MSCHAPV2 to PAP?
If the RADIUS integration with SOnicwall is sending the MSCHAP/MSCHAPV2 packets to miniOrange instead of PAP, then we need to disable MSCHAP/MSCHAPV2 mode to be used in the RADIUS.
For this first uncheck the Force MSCHAPv2 mode from the RADIUS Server settings >> General Settings.
Then Navigate to VPN >> Advanced Settings and uncheck option Use RADIUS in