INC-2026-02-14-001: ISE SAML SSO Restoration

Incident Summary

Incident ID

INC-2026-02-14-001

Severity

Medium (Admin access impacted)

Detection

2026-02-14 ~18:00

Resolution

2026-02-14 ~19:30

Duration

~90 minutes

Status

Resolved

Executive Summary

Successfully restored ISE Admin Portal SAML SSO authentication with Keycloak IdP after restoring ise-02 backup to ise-01. All configuration changes performed via Keycloak REST API - no GUI interaction required.

Timeline

Time Event

~16:00

Restored ise-02 backup to ise-01 (ISE 3.4 → ISE 3.4)

~17:30

Attempted SAML login - redirect loop detected

~18:00

Identified root cause: Keycloak SAML client redirect URIs point to ise-02

~18:15

Downloaded ISE SP metadata (keycloak_01.zip)

~18:30

Extracted Entity ID: CiscoISE/a486c6ef-6c77-4bc1-bf6d-4e479b3aeae8

~18:45

Verified Keycloak client exists with matching Entity ID

~19:00

Updated Keycloak client via REST API (ise-02 → ise-01)

~19:15

Tested SAML login - SUCCESS

~19:30

Documented resolution

Impact

  • ISE Admin Portal SAML SSO unavailable for ~90 minutes

  • Local admin account (admin) remained available as fallback

  • No impact to RADIUS/802.1X authentication

  • No impact to pxGrid, ERS, or OpenAPI services

Metadata

Field Value

Incident ID

INC-2026-02-14-001

Author

Evan Rosado

Date Created

2026-02-14

Status

Resolved

Category

Identity / SAML SSO