Keycloak Administration

Quick Start

Choose your task and load the appropriate reference:

1. New Installation → Continue below
2. Realm & User Management → Load realm-management.md
3. Client Configuration → Load client-configuration.md
4. Authentication & SSO → Load authentication-sso.md
5. Authorization & RBAC → Load authorization-rbac.md
6. User Federation (LDAP/AD) → Load user-federation.md
7. Security Hardening → Load security-hardening.md
8. High Availability & Scaling → Load ha-scalability.md
9. Troubleshooting → Load troubleshooting.md
10. Integration Examples → Load integration-examples.md

Installation & Setup

Docker (Recommended for Development)

docker run -d \
  --name keycloak \
  -p 8080:8080 \
  -e KEYCLOAK_ADMIN=admin \
  -e KEYCLOAK_ADMIN_PASSWORD=admin \
  quay.io/keycloak/keycloak:latest \
  start-dev

Production Mode

bin/kc.sh build --db=postgres

export KC_DB=postgres
export KC_DB_URL=jdbc:postgresql://localhost/keycloak
export KC_DB_USERNAME=keycloak
export KC_DB_PASSWORD=password
export KC_HOSTNAME=keycloak.example.com

bin/kc.sh start --optimized

Initial Configuration Checklist

1. Admin account — strong password (12+ chars)
2. Hostname — configure KC_HOSTNAME for production
3. SSL/TLS — required for production
4. Database — PostgreSQL recommended
5. SMTP — for email verification and password reset

Core Concepts

Concept	Description
Realm	Tenant boundary. Master realm for admin only; create app realms per environment
Client	Application registration. OIDC (modern) or SAML (legacy). Confidential (server) or Public (SPA/mobile)
User/Group	Identity with credentials. Groups for hierarchical organization
Realm Role	Global permission across all clients in a realm
Client Role	Permission scoped to a single client
Composite Role	Role that inherits other roles

Common Tasks

Configure SSO for an Application

1. Create OIDC client with your app's client-id
2. Set Valid Redirect URIs (exact URLs, avoid wildcards)
3. Set Client Authentication: On (confidential) or Off (public with PKCE)
4. Get discovery endpoint: {AuthServerUrl}/realms/{realm}/.well-known/openid-configuration
5. Integrate with your app — see client-configuration.md

Enable MFA

1. Authentication → Flows → Duplicate Browser flow
2. Add OTP or WebAuthn authenticator
3. Set as Required or Conditional
4. Bind custom flow to realm

Connect LDAP/Active Directory

1. User Federation → Add LDAP Provider
2. Configure: URL, Bind DN, Search Base (ou=users,dc=example,dc=com)
3. Set up attribute mappers
4. Test connection, then sync

Essential CLI Commands

# Admin CLI setup
bin/kcadm.sh config credentials --server http://localhost:8080 --realm master --user admin

# Realm operations
bin/kcadm.sh create realms -s realm=my-realm -s enabled=true
bin/kcadm.sh get realms/my-realm

# User operations
bin/kcadm.sh create users -r my-realm -s username=john -s enabled=true
bin/kcadm.sh set-password -r my-realm --username john --new-password secret

# Export/Import
bin/kc.sh export --dir /backup --realm my-realm
bin/kc.sh import --dir /backup

Best Practices

• Realm separation: one realm per app/environment, never use Master for apps
• Token lifespans: access tokens 5–15 min, refresh tokens based on use case
• Public clients: always require PKCE
• Roles: use groups for assignment, roles for permissions, composite roles for aggregation
• Production security: SSL/TLS, brute force protection, MFA for admins, event logging

Reference Documentation

• realm-management.md — Realms, users, groups, attributes, sessions
• client-configuration.md — OIDC/SAML clients, scopes, mappers, service accounts
• authentication-sso.md — Auth flows, MFA, identity brokering, social login
• authorization-rbac.md — Roles, fine-grained authorization (UMA), policies, permissions
• user-federation.md — LDAP/AD integration, sync, mappers, custom providers
• security-hardening.md — Password policies, brute force, TLS, audit, production checklist
• ha-scalability.md — Clustering, database tuning, caching, monitoring, backup/DR
• troubleshooting.md — Login failures, token issues, LDAP sync, session problems, logging
• integration-examples.md — .NET, Spring Boot, Node.js, token validation