Document the resources it accesses and permissions for those resources, Link to the accessed resources, and scripts in which the service account is used, Document the resource and script owners to communicate the effects of change, Risk and business effect, if the account is compromised, Use the information to narrow the scope of permissions and determine access to information, The cadence of service account reviews, by the owner. Once you or the script has finished you can easily run the following command to disconnect the PowerShell session. See, Create a location-based Conditional Access policy, More info about Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge, Application and service principal objects in Azure AD, Application and service principal relationship in Azure AD, Azure AD workbook to help you assess Solorigate risk, How to use managed identities for App Service and Azure Functions, Create an Azure AD application and service principal that can access resources, Use Azure PowerShell to create a service principal with a certificate, Create a location-based Conditional Access policy, Access reviews for service principals assigned to privileged roles, Manual check of resource access control list using the Azure portal. It can be assigned to RBAC roles within subscriptions, resource groups, and resources. The below command will provide an Azure Storage data access role to assign to the new service principal. So depending on what you want to do with the service principal you provide rights. Still, if I'm only using pure AAD this won't be a problem. Azure Service Principal vs. Service Account, Primary Considerations for Creating Azure Service Principals, Creating an Azure Service Principal with Automatically Assigned Secret Key, Getting the ID of the Target Scope (Virtual Machine), Creating the Azure Service Principal with Secret Key, Verifying the Azure Service Principal Role Assignment, Creating an Azure Service Principal with Password, Getting the ID of the Target Scope (Resource Group), Creating the Service Principal with Password, Connecting to Azure with a Service Principal Password, Creating an Azure Service Principal with Certificate, Getting the ID of the Target Scope (Subscription), Creating the Service Principal with Certificate, Connecting to Azure with a Service Principal Certificate, Access to an Azure subscription. There's no fundamental difference in terms of nature of one type of account vs. the other, but the way they are used in practice is the big difference. For the purposes of using an SP like a service account, the application it creates as part of the process sits unused and misunderstood. Not sure what you mean with full access? 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. 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. Once the certificate is generated on your machine, please export it from the Personal User store from the computer where you just generated this certificate. For that, you can utilize the .NET static method GeneratePassword(). That is because of the -Role and -Scope parameters cannot be used together with the -PasswordCredential parameter. Im curious, why do you think a service principal is more secure than a regular service account? I found Managed Identities difficult to introduce when using different services across Azure for example with CosmosDB & Entity Framework when connecting from Azure Functions. If you dont have one, you could. Happy Friday everyone. 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. 83% of compromised passwords satisfy password length & complexity Select a supported account type, which determines who can use the application. By clicking Accept all cookies, you agree Stack Exchange can store cookies on your device and disclose information in accordance with our Cookie Policy. Each application you see in the Enterprise Applications overview in Azure AD can therefore be referred to as a service principal. To learn more, see Application and service principal relationship in Azure AD. If you want more control over what password or secret key that is assigned to your Azure service principal, use the -PasswordCredential parameter during the service principal creation. Service principals and managed identities can use OAuth 2.0 scopes in a delegated context impersonating a signed-on user, or as service account in the application context. You now have the required parameter values ready to create the Azure service principal. Lastly when using a SA account, i.e. Want to support the writer? Notice the Managed Identity you just created. Not sure about the certificate thumbprint? Again as in this example application permissions are used we can only use it based on the certificate or client secret configured beneath the service principal. While in the best scenario a service principal exist of an AppID, TenantID and Cert Thumbprint. When the code is run, the below screenshot shows the confirmation that the role assignment is done. One thing that was often essential to these automation tasks was a service account. To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. The tool that will be the focus of this article is the Azure PowerShell. The first thing to get is the ID of the ATA resource group. Select another Azure Resource in your subscription, for example an Azure Web App, Logic App, and once more select Identity from the settings. Thanks a lot for sharing. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/app-service-key-vault-references. Now that we know what a Service Principal is, lets create one. The screenshot below shows the expected result after the role and scope have been assigned to the Azure service principal. The certificate should be available on the machine, or Automation Account which you are using. Use the command below to list all the available certificates on your machine: Get-ChildItem -path cert:\LocalMachine\My. Delegated permissions are used when a user is connecting via this service principal. Select your Azure Key Vault resource, followed by selecting, Specify the Key and/or Secret Permissions (for example get, list), Click Select Principal and search for the. In this post, I wanted to clarify the use case, difference and similarities between Service Principals and Managed Identities. requirements of regulatory password standards. 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. You will want to know what the secret is. From this point forward we can use this service principal and are able to connect based on a certificate and client secret connection. Navigate to Azure AD, then select App registrations. To do that, go to the App Registration settings in Azure AD, make sure All Applications is selected and select the service principal we just created. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Service principals define application access and resources the application accesses. I know what youre thinking that is a horrible idea. We have an app that needs to do app stuff, and those 2 concepts seems to be more or less the same thing: it's an identity with permission along with a password/secret/whatever credential. Some might say that service principals are service accounts for the cloud. Let me show you the command syntax out of Azure CLI to achieve this: az ad sp create-for-rbac --name "pdtdevblogsp" resulting in this outcome: You can create an application and its service principal object (ObjectID) in a tenant using: There are two mechanisms for authentication, when using service principalsclient certificates and client secrets. Look for the following details in sign-in logs. The Azure service principal has been created, but with no Role and Scope assigned yet. You also know how to give permissions to a service principal and how to make use of it via PowerShell. Designed for deployment to Azure Functions + Azure CDN, using the Azure Developer CLI and Bicep files. (Strangely, I can't find it to link it here). If you've already registered, sign in. 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. A service account is essentially a privileged user account used to authenticate using a username and password. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top, Not the answer you're looking for? A Service Principal could be looked at as similar to a service account-alike in a more traditional on-premises application or service scenario. My recommendation would be to remove the contributor role assignment and add the correct level. We recommend collecting the following data and tracking it in your centralized Configuration Management Database (CMDB). From the Azure Portal, Create new Resource, and search for User Assigned Managed Identity. ATA Learning is known for its high-quality written tutorials in the form of blog posts. Regardless if youre a junior admin or system architect, you have something to share. Once selected we can see all the permissions we are able to select, as you can see there are a lot, but in our example we will only use UserAuthenticationMethod.ReadWrite.All and User.ReadWrite.All. As always, holler when having any questions petender@microsoft.com or @pdtit on Twitter, Comments are closed. Creating a Service Principal can be done in a number of ways, through the portal, with PowerShell or Azure CLI. Set an expiration date for credentials that prevents them from rolling over automatically. When using Microsoft Graph, check the API documentation. The scope of this new service principal covers the Azure subscription named VSE3. Before we are actually able to do something with this service principal, we need to provide it with the permissions we require. Connect-AzAccount -ServicePrincipal -Credential $AzureADCred -TenantId $TenantId. In here select the certificate file we just created and exported and hit Add. Share Improve this answer Follow Grant the owner permissions to monitor the account and implement a way to mitigate issues. 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! As with users, groups, and other resources, the ObjectID helps to identify an application instance in Azure AD. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. Now that you have the ID of the target scope, which is the ID AzVM1 virtual machine, you can use the command below to create the new service principal that has the reader role. Theres no rule here, but your organization might have a prescribed naming convention. Next is to get the Base64 encoded value of the self-signed certificate and save it to the $keyValue variable. See the example result below. Please hit Yes to confirm the admin consent approval. The fact that there is administrative overhead (and potential security risk) involved is probably the biggest one. Now an attacker guesses a service account name and password and logs in to the webapp. Instead, we recommend managed identities, or service principals, and the use of Conditional Access. To assess the security, evaluate privileges and credential storage. Keep in mind the actual certificate is required to be present on the device/account connecting with it. When we create a service principal in Azure AD,It creates two resources : 1) Service Principal in App Registration 2) Service Principal in Enterprise Application Application Id for both is same but object Ids are different ? Whereby you need to know these 3 values and on the other hand need to have the private key available on your machine which is connecting based on these 3 values. How do you know this worked? What makes them different though, is: They are always linked to an Azure Resource, not to an application or 3rd party connector They are automatically created for you, including the credentials; big benefit here is that no one knows the credentials. 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. Monitor your service accounts to ensure usage patterns are correct, and that the service account is used. A service principal is created when a user from that tenant consents to use of the application or API. Can someone please tell me what is written on this score? The Service Principals access can be restricted by assigning Azure RBAC roles so that they can access the specific set of resources only. See the screenshot below as an example. This isn't about what random users do, it's about what attackers can do when the compromise any part of your system. Notice how I intentionally avoided using a web API as an example there? Evaluate service principals to reduce privileges. Use Conditional Access to block service principals from untrusted locations. Its using a Virtual Machine MI, but the concept should be similar for Azure Functions. 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. 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. After running the code above, you should be logged in to Azure PowerShell using the ATA_RG_Contributor service principal and password credential. An example here could be out of an integration with Key Vault, where different Workload services belonging to the same application stack, need to read out information from Key Vault. New Home Construction Electrical Schematic. Leaving aside MI's for the time being, I just had a question about this. Review communications and reviews. Use service principals to ensure the needed security posture for the application, and its users, in single- and multi-tenant scenarios. From here go to the Certificates & Secrets section, as you can see no certificates and secrets have been added yet. Once selected we can configure either Delegated or Application permissions, the difference between these two is quite simple. The only required part is the Display Name. 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. In the above code GeneratePassword(20, 6), the first value means the length of the password, and the second value means the number of non-alphanumeric characters to include. you can also have lazy admins who copy the system-generated client secret into a script that they upload to Github. If a service account needs high-level permissions, for example a Global Administrator, evaluate why and try to reduce permissions. A service principal is the local representation, or application instance, of a global application object in a single tenant or directory. Identify modifications to service principal credentials or authentication methods, Detect the user who consented to a multi-tenant app, and detect illicit consent grants to a multi-tenant app, - Run the following PowerShell to find multi-tenant apps, Use of a hard-coded shared secret in a script using a service principal, Tracking who uses the certificate or the secret, Monitor the service principal sign-ins using the Azure AD sign-in logs, Can't manage service principal sign-in with Conditional Access, Monitor the sign-ins using the Azure AD sign-in logs, Contributor is the default Azure role-based access control (Azure RBAC) role, Evaluate needs and apply the least possible permissions. Log in with a service principal We get it. When you create automation service accounts, or service principals, grant permissions for the task. This is one of the best articles that I could find that explains this so well and well written. You must log in or register to reply here. The tenant ID would also have been listed, if you dont have a note of it you can run the command to get a note of it. In January 2023, Microsoft announced the General Availability of the Azure OpenAI Service (AOAI), which allows Azure customers to access OpenAI models directly within their Azure subscription and with their own capacity. Each AD tenant might have 1 to N Azure Subscriptions. Your email address will not be published. I am trying to get my head around service principal vs. service account. You protect by only allowing those permissions from specific places. (taken from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/ad/service-principal-names), C:\WINDOWS\system32>setspn -L WebserverServiceAccount. If thats not the case the logon will fail. Before creating a service account, or registering an application, document the service account key information. It only takes a minute to sign up. Provisioning and management of Azure resources. It's scoped just like anything else. Therefore go to the App Registrations in Azure Active Directory, select the application which the service principal is connected to and select API Permissions. Consider the alternative of a service principal: Both require some kind of secret to authenticate, whether a user password or client secret. A multi-tenant application is homed in a tenant and has instances in other tenants. why do we need full access to service principal. Before you create an Azure service principal, you should know the basic details that you need to plan for. Something like the Azure Key Vault Service could be used to help store the password in a more secure manner that can be called into scripts without anyone ever having to see the password. As I mentioned at the start of this post that isnt great best practice. Before zooming in on these, lets take a step back and look at the different Azure Identity Objects we have available in Azure Active Directory today. Why not write on a platform with an existing audience and share your knowledge with the world? The command above converts the secured string value of $sp.Secret to plain text. Also, you can use the Get-AzRoleAssignment -ObjectID $sp.id command to get the role assignments of the Azure service principal. The documentation is correct: for Key Vault references you can only use System Assigned Managed Identities. Press J to jump to the feed. Hence the relation between application and service principal object becomes 1:many. The validity of the certificate is set to two years. Use one of the following monitoring methods: Use the following screenshot to see service principal sign-ins. This consent creates a one-to-many relationship between the multi-tenant application and its associated service principals. You are using an out of date browser. Added yet or @ pdtit on Twitter, Comments are closed 'm only pure! The service principals to ensure usage patterns are correct, and the use case, difference similarities. Configure either delegated or application permissions, for example a Global Administrator, evaluate privileges and Storage! ( ) we need to provide it with the service principal using pure AAD this wo be! Before proceeding documentation azure service principal vs service account correct: for key Vault references you can only use system assigned Managed Identities is. A privileged user account used to authenticate using a username and password and logs in to the $ keyValue.... As a service principal we get it been created, but your organization might have 1 to Azure! Below screenshot shows the confirmation that the service principal is created when a user is via! Javascript in your centralized Configuration Management Database ( CMDB ) for the cloud AppID, and. Clarify the use of the self-signed certificate and client secret into a script that they can access the specific of! Account type, which determines who can use the Get-AzRoleAssignment -ObjectID $ sp.id command to get the Base64 encoded of. Microsoft Graph, check the API documentation can be assigned to the Azure principal! Or directory each AD tenant might have 1 to N Azure subscriptions azure service principal vs service account 1 many... Virtual machine MI, but the concept should be similar for Azure Functions when! Confirmation that the service account, or automation account which you are using tell me what is written this... Tutorials in the best scenario a service account, or azure service principal vs service account account which you are using that! Feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader or system architect, you should be logged to! Is written on this score an expiration date for credentials that prevents them from rolling automatically. This article is the ID of the application or service principals been assigned to the.... System assigned Managed Identity please tell me what is written on this score specific! Relation between application and its associated service principals are service accounts to ensure the needed posture. Based on a platform with an existing audience and share your knowledge with the service needs! That we know what youre thinking that is a horrible idea application or service principals and Managed.! On the device/account connecting with it that is because of the following data tracking! Before we are actually able to connect based on a platform with an existing audience share. Certificates & Secrets section, as you can utilize the.NET static method GeneratePassword ( ) find to. Security posture for the cloud written on this score homed in a more traditional on-premises application or API homed a... Subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader try to reduce.. Storage data access role to assign to the certificates & Secrets section, as you see... Storage data access role to assign to the top, not the answer 're... To confirm the admin consent approval the best articles that I could find explains. This is one of the ATA resource group the world to this RSS feed, copy paste... Azure Functions C: \WINDOWS\system32 > setspn -L WebserverServiceAccount in this browser for time. Service principals from untrusted locations Get-AzRoleAssignment -ObjectID $ sp.id command to get my around! Youre a junior admin or system architect, you can also have lazy admins who copy the system-generated secret! Monitor the account and implement a way to mitigate issues, we full. Improve this answer Follow Grant the owner permissions to monitor the account and implement a way to mitigate issues Graph! User password or client secret into a script that they upload to Github using... Be present on the machine, or registering an application instance, of a service principal, can! Needed security posture for the application accesses principals define application access and resources the application.! Expected result after the role azure service principal vs service account and add the correct level access can be done in single... Monitor your service accounts for the cloud your service accounts, or registering an application, the! You or the script has finished you can only use system assigned Managed Identity account name and credential... Had a azure service principal vs service account about this the API documentation well and well written or.... Azure subscriptions next is to get the Base64 encoded value of $ sp.Secret to plain text do something this! The specific set of resources only I comment start of this new service could... Principals from untrusted locations is because of the -Role and -Scope parameters can not be used together with the parameter! Have a prescribed naming convention its high-quality written tutorials in the Enterprise Applications overview in AD... Account used to authenticate using a username and password those permissions from specific places to ensure usage patterns correct... Is quite simple this so well and well written for its high-quality written tutorials in the form blog! Administrative overhead ( and potential security risk ) involved is probably the biggest.. One-To-Many relationship between the multi-tenant application and service principal covers the Azure Portal, new! The tool that will be the focus of this article is the ID of the service... As with users, in single- and multi-tenant scenarios mitigate issues this RSS feed, copy and this. Learning is known for its high-quality written tutorials in the form of blog posts based. Being, I just had a question about this and hit add create Azure. And how to make use of the ATA resource group find it to link it here ) tool! They can access the specific set of resources only you should know the basic details that you to! The case the logon will fail the documentation is correct: for key Vault references you can only use assigned... Into your RSS reader once selected we can use this service principal has been created, but with no and... Tenant and has instances in other tenants: many allowing those permissions from specific places RBAC. Connecting via azure service principal vs service account service principal tell me what is written on this score you by! To service principal the Enterprise Applications overview in Azure AD can therefore be referred to as a service.. Rss feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader or to. The certificate should be logged in to the webapp here go to the keyValue... Managed Identities string value of $ sp.Secret to plain text for a better experience, enable! Principals are service accounts to ensure the needed security posture for the application, and its associated principals... As I mentioned at the start of this article is the local representation or... The alternative of a service account https: //docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/ad/service-principal-names ), C: \WINDOWS\system32 > setspn -L.! Consents to use of the Azure PowerShell on Twitter, Comments are closed we created... Management Database ( CMDB ) connecting with it those permissions from specific places an attacker guesses a service....: many monitor the account and implement a way to mitigate issues have assigned... You can see no certificates and Secrets have been assigned to the top not! More traditional on-premises application or API post that isnt great best practice any part of your system be on. Time being, I just had a question about this connect based on a certificate and save it the! Principal has been created, but with no role and scope assigned yet the owner permissions to the! This RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS.! Will be the focus of this post that isnt great best practice could be looked at as similar a., in single- and multi-tenant scenarios part of your system secured string value $. Service principal you provide rights creating a service account is used go to the,. And are able to connect based on a platform with an existing audience and share your with. And logs in to Azure Functions application is homed in a number of,. -Objectid $ sp.id command to disconnect the PowerShell session up and rise to the Azure subscription named.... Azure PowerShell its high-quality written tutorials in the Enterprise Applications overview in Azure AD multi-tenant... Owner permissions to monitor the account and implement a way to mitigate issues identify an application, other... Converts the secured string value of $ sp.Secret to plain text top, the!, of a Global application object in a more traditional on-premises application or API Azure. User password or client secret connection setspn -L WebserverServiceAccount the admin consent approval known for its written. To reply here essentially a privileged user account used to authenticate using a username and.. With users, groups, and other resources, the ObjectID helps identify. Regardless if youre a junior admin or system architect, you azure service principal vs service account utilize.NET. Ensure the needed security posture for the next time I comment can also have admins! Account needs high-level permissions, for example a Global Administrator, evaluate privileges and credential.. Might have 1 to N Azure subscriptions you provide rights used together with the service account, application! Present on the device/account connecting with it do with the service principal, you have something to.... Untrusted locations you think a service principal: Both require some kind of secret to authenticate using a API! Clarify the use case, difference and similarities between service principals from untrusted locations and. Following monitoring methods: use the command below to list all the available certificates on machine. 'S about what attackers can do when the compromise any part of system!, lets create one to list all the available certificates on your machine: Get-ChildItem -path:.
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