7
PaperTrail
341d

Trying to use authenticate a JWT token from an Azure service, which apparently needs to use Azure AD Identity services (Microsoft Entra ID, Azure AD B2C, pick your poison). I sent a request to our Azure admin. Two days later, I follow up, "Sorry, I forgot...here you go..."
Sends me a (small) screenshot of the some of the properties+GUIDs I need, hoping I don't mess up, still missing a few values.
Me: "I need the instance url, domain, and client secret."
<hour later>
T: "Sorry, I don't understand what those are."
Me: "The login URL. I assume it's the default, but I can't see what you see. Any shot you can give me at least read permissions so I can see the various properties without having to bother you?"
T: "I don't see any URLs, I'll send you the config json, the values you need should be in there."
<10 minutes later, I get a json file, nothing I needed>
<find screenshots of what I'm looking for, send em to T>
Me: "The Endpoints, what URLs do you see when you click Endpoints?"
<20 minutes later, sends me the list of endpoints, exactly what I'm looking for, but still not authenticating the JWT>
Me: "Still not working. Not getting an error, just that the authentication is failing. Don't know if it's the JWT, am I missing a slash, or what. Any way I can get at least read permissions so I don't have to keep bugging you to see certain values?"
T: "What do you need, exactly?"
Me: "I don't know. I don't know if I'm using the right secret key, I can't verify if I'm using the right client id. I feel like I'm guessing trying to make this work."
T: "What exactly are you trying to get working?"
<explain, again, what I'm trying to do>
T: "That's probably not going to work. We don't allow AD authentication from the outside world."
Me: "Yes we do. Microsoft Teams, Outlook, the remote access services. I can log into those services from home using my AD credentials."
T: "Oh yea, I guess we do. I meant what you are trying to do. Azure doesn't allow outside services to authenticate using a JWT. Sorry."

FRACK FRACK FRACK!!

Whew! Putting the flamethrower away.

Thanks devrant for letting me rant.

Comments
  • 1
    yeah. the IT admin from my last job was like that. Definitely had a few of these
  • 3
    Wow, a traditional rant! Quite rare these days!
    Good luck with Azure. I got a few extra gray hairs using it myself in a former job (I don’t miss the Portal)
  • 2
    @black-kite > "I got a few extra gray hairs using it myself"

    Until we were audited, I had full admin access to just about everything. I might not know exactly what I need, but I know 100% I can figure it out.

    In his defense, the main azure admin doesn't really know how to use all the features. He's more of the bean counter trying to keep costs under control.

    Darn MS, got us hooked on Azure ML with pennies per million transactions (whatever it was at the time, ML was really cheap), now it's a capital expenditure needing board approval every year. ML runs our fraud, customer acquisition mining, a couple of other core business functions we cannot do in-house.
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