Book Image

Keycloak - Identity and Access Management for Modern Applications

By : Stian Thorgersen, Pedro Igor Silva
Book Image

Keycloak - Identity and Access Management for Modern Applications

By: Stian Thorgersen, Pedro Igor Silva

Overview of this book

Implementing authentication and authorization for applications can be a daunting experience, often leaving them exposed to security vulnerabilities. Keycloak is an open-source solution for identity management and access management for modern applications, which can make a world of difference if you learn how to use it. Keycloak, helping you get started with using it and securing your applications. Complete with hands-on tutorials, best practices, and self-assessment questions, this easy-to-follow guide will show you how to secure a sample application and then move on to securing different application types. As you progress, you will understand how to configure and manage Keycloak as well as how to leverage some of its more advanced capabilities. Finally, you'll gain insights into securely using Keycloak in production. By the end of this book, you will have learned how to install and manage Keycloak as well as how to secure new and existing applications.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
1
Section 1: Getting Started with Keycloak
4
Section 2: Securing Applications with Keycloak
11
Section 3: Configuring and Managing Keycloak
17
Section 4: Security Considerations

Understanding internal and external applications

When securing an application, the first thing to consider is whether the application is an internal application or an external application.

Internal applications, sometimes referred to as first-party applications, are applications owned by the enterprise. It does not matter who developed the application, nor does it matter how it is hosted. The application could be an off-the-shelf application, and it can also be a Software as a Service (SaaS)-hosted application, while still being considered an internal application.

For an internal application, there is no need to ask the user to grant access to the application when authenticating to the user, as this application is trusted and the administrator that registered the application with Keycloak can pre-approve the access on behalf of the user. In Keycloak, this is done by turning off the Consent Required option for the client, as shown in the following screenshot:

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