Single Sign-On with OneLogin

This guide explains how to enable single sign-on (SSO) for applications being proxied by F5 NGINX Plus. The solution uses OpenID Connect as the authentication mechanism, with OneLogin as the Identity Provider (IdP) and NGINX Plus as the Relying Party (RP), or OIDC client application that verifies user identity.

This guide applies to NGINX Plus Release 35 and later. In earlier versions, NGINX Plus relied on an njs-based solution, which required NGINX JavaScript files, key-value stores, and advanced OpenID Connect logic. In the latest NGINX Plus version, the new OpenID Connect module simplifies this process to just a few directives.

Prerequisites

  • An OneLogin account with administrator privileges.

  • An NGINX Plus subscription and NGINX Plus Release 35 or later. For installation instructions, see Installing NGINX Plus.

  • A domain name pointing to your NGINX Plus instance, for example, demo.example.com.

Configure OneLogin

Create a OneLogin OIDC Application

  1. Log in to your OneLogin admin console, for example, https://<subdomain>.onelogin.com.

  2. In the navigation bar, select Applications.

  3. Click the Add App button.

    • On the Find Applications page, search for OpenID Connect (OIDC) and then select it.

    • Enter a Display Name, for example, NGINX Demo App.

    • Select Save.

  4. In the app navigation, select Configuration.

    • In Redirect URIs, add the callback URI for your NGINX Plus instance, for example, https://demo.example.com/oidc_callback.

    • In Logout URL, add the post logout redirect URI, for example, https://demo.example.com/post_logout/.

    • Select Save.

  5. In the app navigation, select SSO.

    • Copy the Client ID. You will need it later when configuring NGINX Plus.

    • Select Show client secret and copy the Client Secret. You will need it later when configuring NGINX Plus.

    • Copy the Issuer URL, or OpenID Connect Discovery URL. You will need it later when configuring NGINX Plus. For OneLogin, the Issuer ID generally structured as:

      https://<subdomain>.onelogin.com/oidc/2

      See Provider Configuration for details.

Get the OpenID Connect Discovery URL

Check the OpenID Connect Discovery URL. By default, OneLogin publishes the .well-known/openid-configuration document at the following address:

https://<subdomain>.onelogin.com/oidc/2/.well-known/openid-configuration.

  1. Run the following curl command in a terminal:

    curl https://<subdomain>.onelogin.com/oidc/2/.well-known/openid-configuration | jq

    where:

    • the <subdomain>.onelogin.com is your OneLogin subdomain

    • the /oidc/2 is the OneLogin OIDC endpoint version

    • the /.well-known/openid-configuration is the default address for OneLogin for document location

    • the jq command (optional) is used to format the JSON output for easier reading and requires the jq JSON processor to be installed.

    The configuration metadata is returned in the JSON format:

    {
    ...
    "issuer": "https://<subdomain>.onelogin.com/oidc/2",
    "authorization_endpoint": "https://<subdomain>.onelogin.com/oidc/2/auth",
    "token_endpoint": "https://<subdomain>.onelogin.com/oidc/2/token",
    "jwks_uri": "https://<subdomain>.onelogin.com/oidc/2/certs",
    "userinfo_endpoint": "https://<subdomain>.onelogin.com/oidc/2/me",
    "end_session_endpoint": "https://<subdomain>.onelogin.com/oidc/2/logout",
    ...
}

  2. Copy the issuer value, you will need it later when configuring NGINX Plus. Typically, the OpenID Connect Issuer for OneLogin is https://<subdomain>.onelogin.com/oidc/2.

You will need the values of Client ID, Client Secret, and Issuer in the next steps.

Assign Users and Groups

  1. In the app navigation, select Users > Roles.

  2. Add users and groups who should have access to this application.

Set up NGINX Plus

With Onelogin configured, you can enable OIDC on NGINX Plus. NGINX Plus serves as the Rely Party (RP) application — a client service that verifies user identity.

  1. Ensure that you are using the latest version of NGINX Plus by running the nginx -v command in a terminal:

    nginx -v

    The output should match NGINX Plus Release 35 or later:

    nginx version: nginx/1.29.0 (nginx-plus-r35)

  2. Ensure that you have the values of the Client ID, Client Secret, and Issuer obtained during Onelogin Configuration.

  3. In your preferred text editor, open the NGINX configuration file (/etc/nginx/nginx.conf for Linux or /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf for FreeBSD).

  4. In the http {} context, make sure your public DNS resolver is specified with the resolver directive: By default, NGINX Plus re‑resolves DNS records at the frequency specified by time‑to‑live (TTL) in the record, but you can override the TTL value with the valid parameter:

    http {
    resolver 10.0.0.1 ipv4=on valid=300s;

    # ...
}

  5. In the http {} context, define the OneLogin provider named onelogin by specifying the oidc_provider {} context:

    http {
    resolver 10.0.0.1 ipv4=on valid=300s;

    oidc_provider onelogin {

        # ...

    }
    # ...
}

  6. In the oidc_provider {} context, specify:

    • your actual OneLogin Client ID obtained in OneLogin Configuration with the client_id directive

    • your Client Secret obtained in OneLogin Configuration with the client_secret directive

    • the Issuer URL obtained in OneLogin Configuration with the issuer directive

      The issuer is typically your OneLogin OIDC URL:

      https://<subdomain>.onelogin.com/oidc/2.

    • The logout_uri is URI that a user visits to start an RP‑initiated logout flow.

    • The post_logout_uri is absolute HTTPS URL where OneLogin should redirect the user after a successful logout. This value must also be configured in the OneLogin application’s Logout URL setting.

    • If the logout_token_hint directive set to on, NGINX Plus sends the user’s ID token as a hint to OneLogin. This directive is required by OneLogin when post_logout_redirect_uri is used.

    • If the userinfo directive is set to on, NGINX Plus will fetch /oidc/2/me from the OneLogin and append the claims from userinfo to the $oidc_claims_ variables.

    • Important: All interaction with the IdP is secured exclusively over SSL/TLS, so NGINX must trust the certificate presented by the IdP. By default, this trust is validated against your system’s CA bundle (the default CA store for your Linux or FreeBSD distribution). If the IdP’s certificate is not included in the system CA bundle, you can explicitly specify a trusted certificate or chain with the ssl_trusted_certificate directive so that NGINX can validate and trust the IdP’s certificate.

    http {
    resolver 10.0.0.1 ipv4=on valid=300s;

    oidc_provider onelogin {
        issuer            https://<subdomain>.onelogin.com/oidc/2;
        client_id         <client_id>;
        client_secret     <client_secret>;
        logout_uri        /logout;
        post_logout_uri   https://demo.example.com/post_logout/;
        logout_token_hint on;
        userinfo          on;
    }

    # ...
}

  7. Make sure you have configured a server that corresponds to demo.example.com, and there is a location that points to your application (see Step 10) at http://127.0.0.1:8080 that is going to be OIDC-protected:

    http {
    # ...

    server {
        listen      443 ssl;
        server_name demo.example.com;

        ssl_certificate     /etc/ssl/certs/fullchain.pem;
        ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/private/key.pem;

        location / {
            # ...

            proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080;
        }
    }
    # ...
}

  8. Protect this location with OneLogin OIDC by specifying the auth_oidc directive that will point to the onelogin configuration specified in the oidc_provider {} context in Step 5:

    # ...
location / {
     auth_oidc onelogin;

     # ...

     proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080;
}
# ...

  9. Pass the OIDC claims as headers to the application (Step 10) with the proxy_set_header directive. These claims are extracted from the ID token returned by OneLogin:

    # ...
location / {
     auth_oidc onelogin;

     proxy_set_header sub   $oidc_claim_sub;
     proxy_set_header email $oidc_claim_email;
     proxy_set_header name  $oidc_claim_name;

     proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080;
}
# ...

  10. Provide endpoint for completing logout:

    # ...
location /post_logout/ {
     return 200 "You have been logged out.\n";
     default_type text/plain;
}
# ...

  11. Create a simple test application referenced by the proxy_pass directive which returns the authenticated user’s full name and email upon successful authentication:

    # ...
server {
    listen 8080;

    location / {
        return 200 "Hello, $http_name!\nEmail: $http_email\nOneLogin sub: $http_sub\n";
        default_type text/plain;
    }
}

  12. Save the NGINX configuration file and reload the configuration:

    nginx -s reload

Complete Example

This configuration example summarizes the steps outlined above. It includes only essential settings such as specifying the DNS resolver, defining the OIDC provider, configuring SSL, and proxying requests to an internal server.

http {
    # Use a public DNS resolver for Issuer discovery, etc.
    resolver 10.0.0.1 ipv4=on valid=300s;

    oidc_provider onelogin {
        # The 'issuer' is typically your OneLogin OIDC base URL
        # e.g. https://<subdomain>.onelogin.com/oidc/2
        issuer https://<subdomain>.onelogin.com/oidc/2;

        # Replace with your actual OneLogin Client ID and Secret
        client_id <client_id>;
        client_secret <client_secret>;

        # RP‑initiated logout
        logout_uri /logout;
        post_logout_uri https://demo.example.com/post_logout/;
        logout_token_hint on;

        # Fetch userinfo claims
        userinfo on;
    }

    server {
        listen 443 ssl;
        server_name demo.example.com;

        ssl_certificate /etc/ssl/certs/fullchain.pem;
        ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/private/key.pem;

        location / {
            # Protect this path with OneLogin OIDC
            auth_oidc onelogin;

            # Forward OIDC claims to the upstream as headers if desired
            proxy_set_header sub $oidc_claim_sub;
            proxy_set_header email $oidc_claim_email;
            proxy_set_header name $oidc_claim_name;
            proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080;
        }

        location /post_logout/ {
            return 200 "You have been logged out.\n";
            default_type text/plain;
        }
    }

    server {
        # Simple test upstream server
        listen 8080;

        location / {
            return 200 "Hello, $http_name!\nEmail: $http_email\nOneLogin sub: $http_sub\n";
            default_type text/plain;
        }
    }
}

Testing

  1. Open https://demo.example.com/ in a browser. You will be automatically redirected to the OneLogin sign-in page.

  2. Enter valid OneLogin credentials of a user who has access the application. Upon successful sign-in, OneLogin redirects you back to NGINX Plus, and you will see the proxied application content (for example, “Hello, Jane Doe!”).

  3. Navigate to https://demo.example.com/logout. NGINX Plus initiates an RP‑initiated logout; OneLogin ends the session and redirects back to https://demo.example.com/post_logout/.

  4. Refresh https://demo.example.com/ again. You should be redirected to OneLogin for a fresh sign‑in, proving the session has been terminated.

If you restricted access to a group of users, be sure to select a user who has access to the application.

Legacy njs-based OneLogin Solution

If you are running NGINX Plus R33 and earlier or if you still need the njs-based solution, refer to the Legacy njs-based OneLogin Guide for details. The solution uses the nginx-openid-connect GitHub repository and NGINX JavaScript files.

See Also

Revision History

  • Version 2 (August 2025) – Added RP‑initiated logout (logout_uri, post_logout_uri, logout_token_hint) and userinfo support.

  • Version 1 (March 2025) – Initial version (NGINX Plus Release 34)