Keycloak and Spring Boot: The Ultimate Guide to Implementing Single Sign-On

Introduction:

Single Sign-On (SSO) has become an essential feature in modern web applications, enhancing both user experience and security. This comprehensive guide will walk you through implementing SSO using Keycloak and Spring Boot, providing a robust authentication and authorization solution for your applications.

Importance of SSO with Keycloak

Single Sign-On (SSO) is essential for streamlining authentication processes, enhancing security, and improving user experience. Here are some of the key benefits:

1. Centralized Authentication: SSO allows users to authenticate once and gain access to multiple applications. Keycloak provides centralized management for user identities, which is useful in environments with numerous applications.

2. Improved Security: With centralized identity management, security policies (like password strength, two-factor authentication, and account lockout policies) can be uniformly enforced. Keycloak’s support for protocols like OpenID Connect and OAuth 2.0 ensures robust, modern security standards.

3. Reduced Password Fatigue and Enhanced User Experience: By logging in only once, users avoid password fatigue and multiple credentials, leading to smoother and faster interactions across applications.

4. Scalability and Flexibility: Keycloak’s configuration can support large numbers of users and multiple identity providers, including social logins (Google, Facebook, etc.) and enterprise directories (LDAP, Active Directory).

5. Customization and Extensibility: Keycloak allows custom themes, login flows, and extensions, making it adaptable to various needs. It’s also open-source, providing flexibility for organizations to modify or extend the platform as required.
   Alternatives to Single Sign-On (SSO):

6. Multiple Sign-On / Traditional Authentication:

   • Users have separate credentials for each application or service
   • Requires logging in individually to each system
   • Each application manages its own authentication

7. Federated Identity:

   • Similar to SSO, but allows authentication across different organizations
   • Uses standards like SAML or OpenID Connect
   • User's identity is verified by their home organization

8. Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA):

   • Adds additional layers of security beyond just username and password
   • Can be used alongside SSO or traditional authentication
   • Typically involves something you know, have, and are

SSO Flow Explanation:

Before diving into the implementation, let's understand the SSO flow:

Prerequisites:

• Java 17 or later
• Maven
• Docker (for running Keycloak)

Step 1: Project Setup

Create a new Spring Boot project with the following structure:

keycloak-demo/
├── src/
│   ├── main/
│   │   ├── java/
│   │   │   └── com/
│   │   │       └── bansikah/
│   │   │           └── keycloakdemo/
│   │   │               ├── config/
│   │   │               │   └── SecurityConfig.java
│   │   │               ├── controller/
│   │   │               │   └── FoodOrderingController.java
│   │   │               └── KeycloakDemoApplication.java
│   │   └── resources/
│   │       ├── templates/
│   │       │   ├── home.html
│   │       │   └── menu.html
│   │       └── application.yml
├── docker-compose.yml
└── pom.xml

Note:

bansikah is my name ? so you can put yours or example anything you want...

Step 2: Configure pom.xml

Add the following dependencies to your pom.xml or you can just replace the dependency section to avoid conflicts:

<dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupid>org.springframework.boot</groupid>
            <artifactid>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactid>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupid>org.springframework.boot</groupid>
            <artifactid>spring-boot-starter-security</artifactid>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupid>org.springframework.boot</groupid>
            <artifactid>spring-boot-starter-oauth2-client</artifactid>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupid>org.springframework.boot</groupid>
            <artifactid>spring-boot-starter-oauth2-resource-server</artifactid>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupid>org.springframework.boot</groupid>
            <artifactid>spring-boot-starter-thymeleaf</artifactid>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupid>org.springframework.boot</groupid>
            <artifactid>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactid>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.thymeleaf.extras/thymeleaf-extras-springsecurity3 -->
        <dependency>
            <groupid>org.thymeleaf.extras</groupid>
            <artifactid>thymeleaf-extras-springsecurity3</artifactid>
            <version>3.0.5.RELEASE</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

Step 3: Set up Keycloak with Docker

Create a docker-compose.yml file in the root directory:

version: '3'

services:
  keycloak:
    image: quay.io/keycloak/keycloak:latest
    environment:
      KEYCLOAK_ADMIN: admin
      KEYCLOAK_ADMIN_PASSWORD: admin
    ports:
      - "8088:8080"
    command:
      - start-dev

  app:
    build: .
    ports:
      - "8082:8082"
    depends_on:
      - keycloak

Run the Keycloak server with:

docker-compose up -d

Step 4: Configure Keycloak

1. Access the Keycloak Admin Console:

   • Go to http://localhost:8088
   • Log in with admin/admin as username and password

2. Create a New Realm:

   • Go to "Master" at the top left corner
   • Select "Add realm"
   • Name it food-ordering-realm
   • Click "Create"

3. Create a New Client:
   On the first screen:

   • Set the "Client ID" to "food-ordering-client"
   • Client type: Select "OpenID Connect"
   • Click "Next"

On the next screen (Capability config):

• Client authentication: Turn this ON (this replaces the old "confidential" setting)
• Authorization: You can leave this OFF unless you need fine-grained authorization
• Click "Next"

1. Client Configuration:
   • Set the root url to http://localhost:8082/
   • Set Access Type to confidential
   • Add Valid Redirect URIs (each URI on a new line):

 http://localhost:8082/
 http://localhost:8082/menu
 http://localhost:8082/login/oauth2/code/keycloak

• Set Web Origins: http://localhost:8082
• Click "Save"

1. Retrieve the Client Secret:
   • Go to the Credentials tab
   • Copy the Secret field's value for use in the application configuration

1. Create a User:
   • Go to Users and click "Add user"
   • Set a username (e.g., testuser)
   • In Credentials tab:
     • Set a password
     • Disable "Temporary"

and set the password:

Step 5: Configure Spring Boot Application

Create application.yml in src/main/resources:

keycloak-demo/
├── src/
│   ├── main/
│   │   ├── java/
│   │   │   └── com/
│   │   │       └── bansikah/
│   │   │           └── keycloakdemo/
│   │   │               ├── config/
│   │   │               │   └── SecurityConfig.java
│   │   │               ├── controller/
│   │   │               │   └── FoodOrderingController.java
│   │   │               └── KeycloakDemoApplication.java
│   │   └── resources/
│   │       ├── templates/
│   │       │   ├── home.html
│   │       │   └── menu.html
│   │       └── application.yml
├── docker-compose.yml
└── pom.xml

Replace with the copied secret from Keycloak, usually some random text.
Note:

In production or as a good practice it will be good to keep delicate information as such in a .env file at the root of your project and use it as a variable in your configuration it will be something like ${CLIENT_SECRET} which picks it from the .env file when you start your application, this is also applicable to even the redirect, issuer-uri and the rest..

Step 6: Create Security Configuration

Create SecurityConfig.java in src/main/java/com/bansikah/keycloakdemo/config:

<dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupid>org.springframework.boot</groupid>
            <artifactid>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactid>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupid>org.springframework.boot</groupid>
            <artifactid>spring-boot-starter-security</artifactid>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupid>org.springframework.boot</groupid>
            <artifactid>spring-boot-starter-oauth2-client</artifactid>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupid>org.springframework.boot</groupid>
            <artifactid>spring-boot-starter-oauth2-resource-server</artifactid>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupid>org.springframework.boot</groupid>
            <artifactid>spring-boot-starter-thymeleaf</artifactid>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupid>org.springframework.boot</groupid>
            <artifactid>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactid>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.thymeleaf.extras/thymeleaf-extras-springsecurity3 -->
        <dependency>
            <groupid>org.thymeleaf.extras</groupid>
            <artifactid>thymeleaf-extras-springsecurity3</artifactid>
            <version>3.0.5.RELEASE</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

Step 7: Create Controller

Create FoodOrderingController.java in src/main/java/com/bansikah/keycloakdemo/controller:

version: '3'

services:
  keycloak:
    image: quay.io/keycloak/keycloak:latest
    environment:
      KEYCLOAK_ADMIN: admin
      KEYCLOAK_ADMIN_PASSWORD: admin
    ports:
      - "8088:8080"
    command:
      - start-dev

  app:
    build: .
    ports:
      - "8082:8082"
    depends_on:
      - keycloak

Step 8: Create HTML Templates

Create home.html in src/main/resources/templates:

docker-compose up -d

Create menu.html in src/main/resources/templates:

 http://localhost:8082/
 http://localhost:8082/menu
 http://localhost:8082/login/oauth2/code/keycloak

Step 9: Run the Application

You should be able to access the application on this url http://localhost:8082 and you should see this

and when you click the here link it takes you to the keycloak form where the user has to authenticate with username and password under the foodorder realm

and after authenticated you will see the menu page

Now with the importance of SSO, even if i logout, i won't have to login again as below

then i can click the link again and i won't be propted to enter my password and username again as below

Conclusion

Congratulations ?, and Thank you for following up till this time
This implementation demonstrates a robust SSO solution using Keycloak and Spring Boot. It provides a seamless authentication experience while maintaining security. The configuration allows for easy customization and extension to meet specific application needs.
If you encounter any issues or have questions about this implementation, please feel free to leave a comment below. Remember to check the Spring Security and Keycloak documentation for more advanced configurations and features.
Link to code on github

Ref:

• Spring boot
• KeyCloak
• Java 17
• Maven
• Docker

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