How to Implement Unified Authentication for Enterprise Applications with Open‑Source SSO

Pain Points

In many enterprises employees must log into dozens of systems (Grafana, Jumpserver, Jira, GitLab, Jenkins, etc.) each with separate credentials, leading to password reuse, security risks, and heavy administrative overhead for password management, user provisioning, and de‑provisioning.

What is Single Sign‑On (SSO)

SSO (Single Sign‑On) is an authentication technique that allows a user to log in once and gain access to multiple trusted applications without re‑entering credentials, improving convenience and security.

How SSO Works

An SSO platform authenticates the user on the first login and then shares the authentication token with other trusted services, which validate the token with the SSO platform instead of prompting for credentials again.

Common SSO Protocols

OAuth2.0 – authorization protocol for web applications.

SAML 2 – XML‑based enterprise authentication protocol.

OIDC – OpenID Connect, an identity layer on top of OAuth2.0.

CAS – Central Authentication Service, widely used in large organizations.

Benefits of SSO

Improved user experience – users log in once and access all authorized systems, reducing password fatigue and login time.

Enhanced security – centralized authentication enables strong policies, MFA, and reduces the number of exposed login endpoints.

Reduced operational cost – administrators manage permissions in a single place, simplifying onboarding, offboarding, and password resets.

Solution: Open‑Source SSO System

The article recommends an open‑source SSO project built with Golang for the backend and Vue for the frontend, designed as a front‑back separation. Repository URL: https://github.com/yuyan075500/ops-api

Feature Overview

User authentication sources: Windows AD, OpenLDAP, DingTalk, Enterprise WeChat, Feishu QR‑code.

Supported protocols: CAS 3.0, OAuth2.0, SAML 2, OIDC.

Security: MFA via Google Authenticator, Alibaba Cloud App, Huawei Cloud App.

Operations: Self‑service password reset, unified password management without admin intervention.

Deployment Steps

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/yuyan075500/ops-api.git

Enter the Docker‑Compose directory: cd ops-api/deploy/docker-compose Configure environment variables in the .env file (skip if using the provided MySQL, Redis, MinIO containers).

Edit conf/config.yaml to set externalUrl to the actual access address.

Create TLS certificates for production (optional for testing).

Create MinIO data directory: mkdir -p data/minio Start the services: docker-compose up -d Import initial data from deploy/data.sql into the MySQL database.

Log in with the automatically created super‑user (username: admin, password: admin@123...).

After completing these steps, the SSO platform provides unified authentication for all trusted enterprise applications.