Troubleshooting Localhost Resolution for the Authenticator – Beyond Identity

Overview

In some network environments, pa.authenticator.beyondidentity.com or pa2.authenticator.beyondidentity.com may fail to resolve to 127.0.0.1 (localhost). When this happens, the loopback mechanism used by the Beyond Identity authenticator is disrupted, potentially leading to degraded performance or unexpected behavior.

This guide provides steps to detect, remediate, and prevent this issue.

Detecting the Issue

To verify if the DNS resolution is failing, run the following command in a terminal:

dig +short pa.authenticator.beyondidentity.com

If the output does not return 127.0.0.1, the domain is not resolving correctly to localhost.

Remediating the Issue

You can force proper resolution by adding a static entry to the system’s hosts file. Run the following script:

#!/bin/bash
# Add the entry to the hosts file
echo "127.0.0.1 pa2.authenticator.beyondidentity.com" | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts

# Exit with a success code (0)
exit 0

This ensures that requests to pa2.authenticator.beyondidentity.com resolve to 127.0.0.1.

Preventing Recurrence (MDM Deployment)

To prevent this issue across multiple devices, deploy the same script via your Mobile Device Management (MDM) system. For example, you can distribute the hosts file update as part of a configuration profile or custom script.

Doing so enforces consistent resolution for all managed endpoints, avoiding future disruption.

Related Notes

In release 2.102.0-6-7, Beyond Identity introduced Proxy Auto-Config (PAC) support for Windows and macOS endpoints.
Administrators should ensure that both pa.authenticator.beyondidentity.com and pa2.authenticator.beyondidentity.com are bypassed in PAC configurations so they always resolve to 127.0.0.1.
Failure to bypass or properly resolve these addresses may cause slow performance, especially on macOS systems.

Summary

Check: Run dig to confirm DNS resolution.
Fix: Add a static hosts entry.
Prevent: Deploy the fix via MDM.