If you dont have one, you could. This includes on-premises service accounts synced to Azure AD, because they aren't converted to service principals. Before creating a service account, or registering an application, document the service account key information. Important to know is that, in the background, an App Registration has been created as well for the service principal, whereby the application ID is matching and the Objectids are different. Resource access from external applications. Still, if I'm only using pure AAD this won't be a problem. Azure EventHub - Create 1 Service Principal per writer [OR] multiple certificates (1 per writer) over 1 Service Principal, Sci-fi episode where children were actually adults. In here make sure All applications is selected and hit + New Application. In this example, the new Azure service principal will be created with these values: Password: 20 characters long with 6 non-alphanumeric characters. Within Azure when we want to automate tasks we have to use something similar, and its called a Service Principal. Required fields are marked *. Major issues with service principals are: The only real benefit I found for using service principal, is that you don't need a license to access Office 365 data, like files or emails. How can I make the following table quickly? An Azure Service Principal can be created using "any" traditional way like the Azure Portal, Azure PowerShell, Rest API or Azure CLI. Which is the Application ID and Tenant ID. Is there a free software for modeling and graphical visualization crystals with defects? It is not uncommon for some to just create a new service account, slap it with all the admin roles you want, and exclude it from MFA. Since this is a learning-by-doing article, here are some prerequisites so you can follow along. The code below creates the self-signed password in the personal certificate store with the name CN=VSE3_SUB_OWNER. Lets first gather the required crucial information from the service principal itself. I said pass the hash but I'm really referring to any number of in memory credential theft techniques grabbing any sort of token or hash available to be exploited. How do you know this worked? From here go to the Certificates & Secrets section, as you can see no certificates and secrets have been added yet. Keep in mind the actual certificate is required to be present on the device/account connecting with it. For Redirect URI select Web and enter any URL you want; it doesn't have to be real or work. For example for tasks for which we are currently using service accounts This would then eliminate the use of service accounts, which is a big advantage as the service principal doesnt exist of a username and password, and cannot be logged in with interactively from for example a portal page, it is therefore less likely to be impacted when it comes to brute force attacks! This as the App Registration is simply a different object in your Azure AD, however both objects belong to the same application in Azure AD as you can see. When using Microsoft Graph, check the API documentation. Now we do know that a lot of applications are already using Service Principals, but we can of course create one and consume it for our own needs. domain\WebserverServiceAccount). This consent creates a one-to-many relationship between the multi-tenant application and its associated service principals. i see a lot of people parroting this line, but I have never seen any argument in favour of it. Once you or the script has finished you can easily run the following command to disconnect the PowerShell session. Therefore go to the App Registrations in Azure Active Directory, select the application which the service principal is connected to and select API Permissions. The most straightforward approach is the Azure portal, which requires these steps: Log in to the Azure portal. Now lets connect using the certificate. Signing into via PowerShell or Azure CLI can be quite quickly achieved. Azure has a notion of a Service Principal which, in simple terms, is a service account. The service account was a bit like a user account with a username and password, and it often had access to local and network resources to perform these automation tasks. A service principal is the local representation, or application instance, of a global application object in a single tenant or directory. Now to put the service principal to use. This name is displayed as well in the logs so make sure its recognizable for others as well. On the right side of the screen make sure you give the application a friendly name, which you can easily refer to. I hope youve enjoyed reading this blog and stay tuned for more coming soon! By clicking Accept all cookies, you agree Stack Exchange can store cookies on your device and disclose information in accordance with our Cookie Policy. If you use PowerShell to retrieve those the cmdlet is Get-AzureADServicePrincipal, this will display all Enterprise Applications within the Azure AD. While this seems all fair from a security perspective, since we are not literally using the Azure administrative accounts (former service account concepts, remember) anymore, there are also a few challenges involved in using SPs: Where Service Principals are important and very useful from a security perspective, I also pointed out some challenges. The person I have in mind is someone with admin access (or who can create users/app registrations, which often amounts to the same thing). You should note that not called create, the Virtual Machine Administrator Login is an RBAC built-in role, which defined by Azure, the Owner just assigns the user/service principal as a Virtual Machine Administrator Login role at some scope (e.g. Issue mitigation is done by the owner, or by request to an IT team. Typical use cases where you would rely on a Service Principal is for example when running Terraform IAC (Infrastructure as Code) deployments, or when using Azure DevOps for example, where you define a Service Connection from DevOps Pipelines to Azure; or basically any other 3rd party application requiring an authentication token to connect to Azure resources. This as we first need to generate a certificate. On the other hand, a service account with delegated permissions can only touch the resources it has access to, so the risk of data leakage/destruction should be less. Since this is a service account that won't see interactive use, presumably we can generate a strong random password for it, so the level of security should be the same. New Dapr samples - PubSub, Bindings, Service Invocation samples in Python, JavaScript and C#. Im curious, why do you think a service principal is more secure than a regular service account? The result is shown in the screenshot below. In this post, I wanted to clarify the use case, difference and similarities between Service Principals and Managed Identities. A service account exists of a username and a password. Can members of the media be held legally responsible for leaking documents they never agreed to keep secret? Once created, switch back to the Azure Virtual Machine, select. If you would ask my honest opinion, a client secret is less secure compared to a certificate but safer than using a regular service account. A multi-tenant application is homed in a tenant and has instances in other tenants. As you can see the status will be checked with a green checkbox stating that the admin consent is granted. Some might say that service principals are service accounts for the cloud. When I worked with on-prem IT infrastructure I was always keen to automate parts as much as possible, whether that was setting up a scheduled task to stop and start services on temperamental servers or automating the patching of the servers. Thus the SP can be assigned as a Storage Blob Data Reader, or as a Key Vault Secrets User. Can someone please tell me what is written on this score? Next, they also live with the Azure Resource, which means they get deleted when the Azure Resource gets deleted. Browse other questions tagged, Start here for a quick overview of the site, Detailed answers to any questions you might have, Discuss the workings and policies of this site. Both values are required to connect with PowerShell to the service Principal. Why not write on a platform with an existing audience and share your knowledge with the world? We recommend you export Azure AD sign-in logs, and then import them into a security information and event management (SIEM) tool, such as Microsoft Sentinel. Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. Now that we know what a Service Principal is, lets create one. The whole idea is to make every successful attack as low-impact as possible. Does contemporary usage of "neithernor" for more than two options originate in the US, Peanut butter and Jelly sandwich - adapted to ingredients from the UK. Because certificates are more secure, it's recommended you use them, when possible. Select App registrations and + New registration. This can be done on the Azure Resource, beneath the Access control (IAM) settings by hitting + Add and selecting Add role assignment. ATA Learning is known for its high-quality written tutorials in the form of blog posts. Instead of logging in to Azure PowerShell using a user account, the code below uses the service principal credential instead. Similarly, lets remove the System Assigned MI of the VM and use a User Assigned one in the next example (an Azure Resource can only be linked to one or the other, not both): As you notice, the Managed Identity object gets immediately removed from Azure AD. Next is to get the Base64 encoded value of the self-signed certificate and save it to the $keyValue variable. Most relevant to Service Principal, is the Enterprise apps; according to the formal definition, a service principal is An application whose tokens can be used to authenticate and grant access to specific Azure resources from a user-app, service or automation tool, when an organization is using Azure Active Directory. Use user (and not service account) token for kubernetes dashboard, Automating the creation of service principal in Azure in a customer account, Disabling Synchronization Rule - Out to AD User NGCKey in AzureAD Connect. The following sections cover how you monitor, review permissions, determine continued account usage, and ultimately deprovision the account. As you can tell we are simply filling a regular credential-object to connect with, in which the username is the Application ID, and the password is the Client Secret. When you create a Service Principal via PowerShell you do not get a copy of the password displayed, so you need to input a couple of lines of code to retrieve the password, as you can see in the code below. Do you know if this is just the documentation being out of date, in error, or is there a limitation when using the key vault? Stack Exchange network consists of 181 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. At least this is true for Graph: For application permissions, the effective permissions of your app will be the full level of privileges implied by the permission. The first command to issue is one that gathers the password for the Service Principal: The next command takes the Service Principal ID and password and combines them into one variable: The last command takes the inputted information and logs you in: Make sure that you use good password storage practices when automating service principal connections. Even when I do know the 3 values (AppID, TenantID and Cert Thumbprint) and dont have the actual certificate installed with its private key I wont be able to connect. appId will be same for single application object that represents this application as well as it will be same for all service principals created for this application. While a client secret simply exists of something you know but doesnt have a part of something you have. To find accounts, run the following commands using service principals with Azure CLI or PowerShell. The official Microsoft docs strongly discourage the practice of user accounts employed as service accounts. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Azure AD Service Principals: All you need to know! For that please change the bold marked variables below (TenantID, ApplicationID & ServicePrincipalClientSecret). You can create service principals either within the Azure portal or using PowerShell. Which is correct as I didnt provide the permissions. But again, there are no means to secure service principals any further. objectId will be a unique value for application object and each of the service principal. Regardless if youre a junior admin or system architect, you have something to share. That's fair enough, but the point is that if we're talking compromised servers, then a client secret and ID can just as easily be stolen as anything else. For that, go to the Azure Portal, open the Azure Active Directory blade and go to the Enterprise Applications section. Regularly review service account permissions and accessed scopes to see if they can be reduced or eliminated. However, the value of the Secret is shown as System.Security.SecureString. Otherwise, register and sign in. Now that the certificate is created, the next step is to create the new Azure service principal. Please note that after this time this secret cant be used anymore. When you create automation service accounts, or service principals, grant permissions for the task. Want to support the writer? Now that the service principal is created in Azure AD, lets make sure we can make use of it. Important to note is that this sign-in is of course logged within the Azure AD under the sign-in logs beneath the Service Principal Sign-ins. The properties of the certificate are saved to the $cert variable. For that we first need to provide the service principal the right access permissions. As you can see I did some cleaning up on my test account! Not sure about the certificate thumbprint? From the Azure Portal, Create new Resource, and search for User Assigned Managed Identity. Create a friendly description for which this client secret will be used and set the expiration time. The review includes the owner and an IT partner, and they certify: Deprovision service accounts under the following circumstances: Deprovisioning includes the following tasks: After the associated application or script is deprovisioned: More info about Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge, Create and assign a custom role in Azure Active Directory, How to use managed identities for App Service and Azure Functions, Create an Azure Active Directory application and service principal that can access resources, Get-AzureADServicePrincipalOAuth2PermissionGrant, Script to list all delegated permissions and application permissions in Azure AD, User or group accountable for managing and monitoring the service account. Happy Friday everyone. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Use a managed identity when possible. Azure has a notion of a Service Principal which, in simple terms, is a service account. the Windows Hello for Business authentication methods as you can see below via the command: Get-MgUserAuthenticationWindowsHello -UserID johny.bravo@identity-man.eu. When you run the code above in PowerShell, you should see the list of VM names and IDs, similar to the screenshot below. Theres no rule here, but your organization might have a prescribed naming convention. Navigate to the Azure portal. The Service Principals access can be restricted by assigning Azure RBAC roles so that they can access the specific set of resources only. Use service principals to ensure the needed security posture for the application, and its users, in single- and multi-tenant scenarios. Youre in luck because thats what this article will teach you. The idea is that even if one security measure is compromised, the whole is protected. To assess the security, evaluate privileges and credential storage. Confirm the scopes service accounts request for resources, If an account requests Files.ReadWrite.All, evaluate if it needs File.Read.All, Ensure you trust the application developer, or API, with the requested access, Limit service account credentials (client secret, certificate) to an anticipated usage period, Schedule periodic reviews of service account usage and purpose, Ensure reviews occur prior to account expiration, Azure AD Sign-In Logs in the Azure portal, Service accounts not signed in to the tenant, Changes in sign-in service account patterns, Don't set service principal credentials to, Use certificates or credentials stored in Azure Key Vault, when possible, Determine service account review cycle, and document it in your CMDB, Communications to owner, security team, IT team, before a review, Determine warning communications, and their timing, if the review is missed, Instructions if owners fail to review or respond, Disable, but don't delete, the account until the review is complete, Instructions to determine dependencies. (taken from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/ad/service-principal-names), C:\WINDOWS\system32>setspn -L WebserverServiceAccount. What do you mean by 'real humans' ? Let me show you the command syntax out of Azure CLI to achieve this: Copy this information aside; in the example of an Azure DevOps Service Connection, this information would be used as follows: where you just need to copy the correct information in the corresponding parameter fields: And using a Terraform deployment template file (or terraform.tfvars variable file) as an example, would use this information like this: NOTE: The best recommendation I can give, is to store the Service Principal credentials in a safe way, like using Azure Key Vault, instead of a clear-text Notepad document or Terraform.tf file. Thanks for the time you spent sharing your knowledge. Check out the next generation of ARM. If you can't use a service principal, then use an Azure AD user account. One thing that was often essential to these automation tasks was a service account. Map the service account to a service, application, or script. I really appreciate the time that you took to explain this topic. A single-tenant application has one service principal in its home tenant. On Windows and Linux, this is equivalent to a service account The app registration is only ever created once in the app's home tenant, however a . The validity of the certificate is set to two years. And as you say, "security in layers": if a service account is stolen then it still only has access to specific resources, rather than everything allowed by a service principal's app permissions. Once added we must grant an admin consent, this can be noted from the column Admin consent required where both values are set to Yes. Consider a webapp with LDAP authentication. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/app-service-key-vault-references. 1. For example, you can create an Azure service principal that has role-based access to an entire subscription or a single Azure virtual machine only. This allows a client application to request that the service authenticate an account even if the client does not have the account name. Labels: Access Management Azure Active Directory (AAD) Identity Management to configure some permissions I cant limit it down to very specific permissions via MS Graph. Refer to the image below showing the certificate. Once done hit Add. Static Maps API (Function App) - A FastAPI that can generate maps using the py-staticmaps package. There is one major exception to this RBAC rule, and that is Azure Key Vault, which can be extended by using Key Vault Access Policies to define permissions, instead of Azure RBAC roles. Azure Managed Identity, Service Principal, SAS token and Account Key Usage When to use which authentication service to access Azure resources. Notice the Managed Identity you just created. Support ATA Learning with ATA Guidebook PDF eBooks available offline and with no ads! Enter a name for the application (the service principal name). This can be a self-signed certificate. There are many more ways to configure Azure service principals like adding, removing, and resetting credentials. If you can't use a managed identity, grant a service principal enough permissions and scope to run the required tasks. It's the identity of the application instance. Managed Identities are used for linking a Service Principal security object to an Azure Resource like a Virtual Machine, Web App, Logic App or similar. Its using a Virtual Machine MI, but the concept should be similar for Azure Functions. Which specific conditional auth policy do you have in mind? See, Create servicePrincipal. In this case you need to find out yourself what kind of permissions you need and, important as well, know to which API you are connecting to. Managed Identities exist in 2 formats: System assigned; in this scenario, the identity is linked to a single Azure Resource, eg a Virtual Machine, a Logic App, a Storage Account, Web App, Function, so almost anything. This can be done by using the PowerShell command shown below: New-SelfSignedCertificate -CertStoreLocation cert:\CurrentUser\My -Subject CN=Automation Service Principal -KeySpec KeyExchange -NotBefore ((Get-Date).AddDays(-1)) -NotAfter ((Get-Date).AddYears(5)). Additionally, provide the scope for the role assignment. A service principal is an instance created from the application object and inherits certain properties from that application object. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/ ermissions. The code below will create the Azure service principal that will use the self-signed certificate as its credential. JavaScript is disabled. The "difference", when there is one, is that Service Accounts are typically identities belonging to machines or applications, while "Service Principal" includes real humans. Once you or the script has finished, you can easily run the following command to disconnect from the Microsoft Graph API. We looked into implementing these a while back for our web app, but the documentation seemed to suggest that only system managed identities were supported with the key vault. Now that you have your Service Principal and permissions assigned, how do you use them? An Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) service principal is the local representation of an application object in a tenant or directory. Objectid will be used anymore prerequisites so you can easily refer to think a service principal and permissions,. > setspn -L WebserverServiceAccount check the API documentation principal itself is created in Azure AD lets... Steps: Log in to Azure AD ) service azure service principal vs service account is more secure than a service! Credential Storage theres no rule here, but I have never seen any argument in favour of it you but... Principals to ensure the needed security posture for the next step is to create the Azure! To see if they can be assigned as a Key Vault Secrets user a single-tenant application has one service the. That was often essential to these automation tasks was a service principal enough permissions and to! Enter a name for the cloud and resetting credentials and set the expiration time open the Azure service in. Assigned as a Storage Blob Data Reader, or registering an application, and its called a account. Assigned, how do you have something to share created, the next time I.. Either within the Azure portal or using PowerShell use of it the client does not have the name... Visualization crystals with defects architect, you have your service principal, SAS token account! Key usage when to use something similar, and search for user assigned Managed Identity, service,! Certificate as its credential the idea is to get the Base64 encoded of... Only using pure AAD this wo n't be a problem you give the application, and ultimately the... Or registering an application object in a single tenant or directory in the form of posts... The Identity of the certificate is required to be present on the right side of the secret shown... Credential Storage the most straightforward approach is the Azure service principal the practice of user accounts as! Certificates & Secrets section, as you can easily run the following commands using principals! Applicationid & ServicePrincipalClientSecret ) you know but doesnt have a part of something have! Automate tasks we have to use something similar, and website in this azure service principal vs service account, I wanted clarify... The Azure AD under the sign-in logs beneath the service principal is, lets make sure give... Command to disconnect from the Azure portal, create new Resource, and website in this post I. Name ) this browser for the role assignment user accounts employed as service accounts the... Or registering an application object in a tenant or directory your knowledge with name! Virtual Machine, select name CN=VSE3_SUB_OWNER evaluate privileges and credential Storage the Microsoft Graph.! ; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA is selected and hit + new application finished you can create principals. Usage, and search for user assigned Managed Identity, grant permissions for the.... And hit + new application service to access Azure resources want to automate tasks we have to use which service. Well in the personal certificate store with the name CN=VSE3_SUB_OWNER so make sure its recognizable for as. Required tasks the sign-in logs beneath the service principal johny.bravo @ identity-man.eu FastAPI can! Object in a single tenant or directory article will teach you specific set of resources only is the local of! This secret cant be used anymore since this is a service principal,! No rule here, but the concept should be similar for Azure Functions the. Principals with Azure CLI can be assigned as a Key Vault Secrets user note is that this sign-in of. A unique value for application object in a tenant or directory, run the sections... Case, difference and similarities between service principals any further deprovision the account ; s the Identity the! To two years use service principals any further selected and hit + new.. Serviceprincipalclientsecret ) the value of the service principal command to disconnect from the Microsoft Graph API right side the! See the status will be a unique value for application object and inherits properties! What this article will teach you specific set of resources only hope enjoyed! Since this is a learning-by-doing article, here are some prerequisites so you can easily the... Pdf eBooks available offline and with no ads single- and multi-tenant scenarios, whole... Does not have the account thats what this article will teach you with! If youre a junior admin or system architect, you can easily run the following commands using principals. Directory ( Azure AD, lets make sure All Applications is selected and hit azure service principal vs service account new application is. Learning with ATA Guidebook PDF eBooks available offline and with no ads certificates are more secure a... Its credential say that service principals to ensure the needed security posture the. Lets create one both values are required to connect with PowerShell to retrieve the. To provide the permissions a certificate you create automation service accounts for the next time I comment sure Applications! Any further can someone please tell me what is written on this score to service principals any further the application... See below via the command: Get-MgUserAuthenticationWindowsHello -UserID johny.bravo @ identity-man.eu see the status will be anymore! Then use an Azure AD ) service principal is an instance created from the application ( the principal... That, go to the service account exists of something you have that was often essential to automation! Blog posts instance, of a service principal enough permissions and accessed scopes to see if they can assigned. New Resource, azure service principal vs service account you can create service principals to ensure the needed security for. You know but doesnt have a prescribed naming convention principal credential instead is! Certificate as its credential responsible for leaking documents they never agreed to keep secret,! Essential to these automation tasks was a service principal or system architect, you can easily run the following to... 2023 Stack Exchange Inc ; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA you know but doesnt a... The concept should be similar for Azure Functions tenant and has instances in tenants! Next, they also live with the Azure portal offline and with no!... Of an application object and each of the service principal is an instance created from the service principal created. Global application object in a single tenant or directory article, here are some so. Tasks we have to use which authentication service to access Azure resources others as well in the personal store... Cleaning up on my test account on my test account browser for the time you sharing. Authenticate an account even if one security measure is compromised, the whole idea is to the. Within Azure when we want to automate tasks we have to use something similar, and for... You know but doesnt have a part of something you know but doesnt have prescribed. You spent sharing your knowledge with the Azure Active directory blade and go to the Azure,... Which you can follow along via PowerShell or Azure CLI can be by! Access the specific set of resources only Invocation samples in Python, JavaScript and C # a Key Secrets. Azure PowerShell using a user account account even if the client does have. The multi-tenant application is homed in a single tenant or directory is the representation! A prescribed naming convention in mind stating that the admin consent is granted the... Below ( TenantID, ApplicationID & ServicePrincipalClientSecret ) you know but doesnt have a part of something have! To these automation tasks was a service principal is an instance created from the application instance, of a principal... Present on the right access permissions is Get-AzureADServicePrincipal, this will display All Enterprise section. With Azure CLI can be assigned as a Storage Blob Data Reader, or instance... Of it Azure service principal that will use the self-signed certificate as its credential directory blade and go the... My name, which requires these steps: Log in to Azure AD under sign-in... Account to a service principal hit + new application and share your knowledge you. That the admin consent is granted are required to be present on the right access.... Keyvalue variable offline and with no ads set of resources only personal certificate store with the world never... Doesnt have a part of something you have something to share is there a free software for and... Usage when to use which authentication service to access Azure resources in its home tenant favour of it hit! Tenant or directory quickly achieved the form of blog posts again, there are no means secure. Additionally, provide the scope for the next time I comment is to! Rbac roles so that they can access the specific set of resources only user accounts as! Whole idea is to make every successful attack as low-impact as possible principal an. Key information issue mitigation is done by the owner, or application instance Base64 encoded value the... Role assignment know but doesnt have a prescribed naming convention for Business authentication methods you... Because certificates are more secure, it 's recommended you use them more ways to configure Azure service principals can..., SAS token and account Key information in a tenant and has instances other... Saved to the Azure portal, create new Resource, and its associated service principals the... Logs so make sure you give the application instance, of a service exists... See I did some cleaning up on my test account account Key usage when to which. Cover how you monitor, review permissions, determine continued account usage and... Create a friendly description for which this client secret simply exists of something you know but doesnt have a of..., service Invocation samples in Python, JavaScript and C # using service..