Installing OpenSource SAML in Your Lab Environment

By Manny Fernandez

February 9, 2026

Installing OpenSource SAML in Your Lab Environment

In my lab, I did not want to spend money on getting EntraID or Google Woskspace SAML, so I set out to find an Open Source project that would allow me to run SAML servers as an SP and be able to connect my lab FortiGates, FortiAuthenticators, etc. to it. I found Authentik, although some of the features it has are in the FAC, I wanted to be able to mimic the FAC connecting to an SP.

Install Ubuntu Server

You can use the standard Ubuntu Server installation. I use the minimum but you can use what you feel comfortable with. Once your Ubuntu server is up and running, we will need to run a sudo apt update and sudo apt upgrade

Add Docker’s official GPG key

sudo apt update
sudo apt install ca-certificates curl ##My apt update upgraded these for me.
sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
sudo curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc

Add the repository to Apt sources

sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.sources <<EOF
Types: deb
URIs: https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu
Suites: $(. /etc/os-release && echo "${UBUNTU_CODENAME:-$VERSION_CODENAME}")
Components: stable
Signed-By: /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
EOF

Then run sudo apt update again.

Install The Docker Packages

sudo apt install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

Docker Should Start Automatically, but lets test.

sudo systemctl status docker

Verify that the installation is successful by running the hello-world image:
sudo docker run hello-world

Directory Structure

Make some directory structure (e.g mkdir docker )

Download the latest Authentik .yml file

wget https://docs.goauthentik.io/docker-compose.yml

By running this command, it will generate a .env file in the docker directory you created and ran the .yml file from.
echo "PG_PASS=$(openssl rand -base64 36 | tr -d '\n')" >> .env
echo "AUTHENTIK_SECRET_KEY=$(openssl rand -base64 60 | tr -d '\n')" >> .env

Pull Down the Docker Container

Now lets pull down the docker image and get to getting

sudo docker compose pull
sudo docker compose up -d

Once this is complete, you should see something like this on your SSH console

Initial Login

You will need to ensure that you add the initial-setup/ at the end.

HTTP: http://<your server's IP or hostname>:9000/if/flow/initial-setup/

HTTPS: https://<your server's IP or hostname>:9443/if/flow/initial-setup/

I will be posting more about my lab setup and the “infrastructure” I created (e.g. Bind Server, Postfix, Dovecot, Authentik, CA server, etc.)

Hope this helps.

Thanks to Bill Eden for pointing out a missing step.

Installing OpenSource SAML in Your Lab Environment

Install Ubuntu Server

Add Docker’s official GPG key

Add the repository to Apt sources

Install The Docker Packages

Directory Structure

Download the latest Authentik .yml file

Pull Down the Docker Container

Initial Login

Recent posts