Keycloak on Kubernetes

Get started with Keycloak on Kubernetes

Before you start

Make sure you have Minikube installed, ideally with the Ingress addon enabled.

To check if you have the Ingress addon enabled run:

minikube addons list

If the Ingress addon is not enabled run the following to enable it:

minikube addons enable ingress

Run Keycloak

The Keycloak QuickStarts repository includes some example files to help deploy Keycloak to Kubernetes. First step is to retrieve these files by cloing the repository:

Let’s start with creating the Keycloak deployment and service:

kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/keycloak/keycloak-quickstarts/latest/kubernetes-examples/keycloak.yaml

This will start Keycloak on Kuberneters. It will also create an initial admin user with username admin and password admin.

Access Keycloak with Ingress addon enabled

Start by creating an Ingress for Keycloak:

wget -q -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/keycloak/keycloak-quickstarts/latest/kubernetes-examples/keycloak-ingress.yaml | \
sed "s/KEYCLOAK_HOST/keycloak.$(minikube ip).nip.io/" | \
kubectl create -f -

If you don’t have wget and sed available, download the file and manually edit the file replacing KEYCLOAK_HOST with keycloak.<minikube ip address>.nip.io.

Run the following to find out the URLs of Keycloak:

KEYCLOAK_URL=https://keycloak.$(minikube ip).nip.io/auth &&
echo "" &&
echo "Keycloak:                 $KEYCLOAK_URL" &&
echo "Keycloak Admin Console:   $KEYCLOAK_URL/admin" &&
echo "Keycloak Account Console: $KEYCLOAK_URL/realms/myrealm/account" &&
echo ""

Remember these URLs as you will need them throughout this guide. The URL for the account console won’t work right now as you will need to create the realm first.

Access Keycloak without Ingress

If you don’t have the Ingress addon enabled you can access Keycloak from the following URL:

KEYCLOAK_URL=http://$(minikube ip):$(kubectl get services/keycloak -o go-template='{{(index .spec.ports 0).nodePort}}')/auth &&
echo "" &&
echo "Keycloak:                 $KEYCLOAK_URL" &&
echo "Keycloak Admin Console:   $KEYCLOAK_URL/admin" &&
echo "Keycloak Account Console: $KEYCLOAK_URL/realms/myrealm/account" &&
echo ""

Remember these URLs as you will need them throughout this guide. The URL for the account console won’t work right now as you will need to create the realm first.

Login to the admin console

Go to the Keycloak Admin Console and login with the username and password you created earlier.

Create a realm

A realm in Keycloak is the equivalent of a tenant. It allows creating isolated groups of applications and users. By default there is a a single realm in Keycloak called master. This is dedicated to manage Keycloak and should not be used for your own applications.

Let’s create our first realm.

  1. Open the Keycloak Admin Console

  2. Hover the mouse over the dropdown in the top-left corner where it says Master, then click on Add realm

  3. Fill in the form with the following values:

    • Name: myrealm

  4. Click Create

Add Realm

Create a user

Initially there are no users in a new realm, so let’s create one:

  1. Open the Keycloak Admin Console

  2. Click Users (left-hand menu)

    • Click Add user (top-right corner of table)

  3. Fill in the form with the following values:

    • Username: myuser

    • First Name: Your first name

    • Last Name: Your last name

  4. Click Save

Add User

The user will need an initial password set to be able to login. To do this:

  1. Click Credentials (top of the page)

  2. Fill in the Set Password form with a password

  3. Click ON next to Temporary to prevent having to update password on first login

Set Password

Login to account console

Let’s now try to login to the account console to verify the user is configured correctly.

  1. Open the Keycloak Account Console

  2. Login with myuser and the password you created earlier

You should now be logged-in to the account console where users can manage their accounts.

Keycloak Account Console

Secure your first app

Let’s try to secure our first application. First step is to register this application with your Keycloak instance:

  1. Open the Keycloak Admin Console

  2. Click 'Clients'

  3. Fill in the form with the following values:

  4. Click Save

Add Client

To make it easy for you we have a SPA testing application available on the Keycloak website.

Open https://www.keycloak.org/app/. Change Keycloak URL to the URL of your Keycloak instance. Click Save.

Now you can click Sign in to authenticate to this application using the Keycloak server you started earlier.

Next

Before you go and run Keycloak in production there are a few more things that you will want to do, including:

  • Switch to a production ready database such as PostgreSQL

  • Configure SSL with your own certificates

  • Switch the admin password to a more secure password

For more information check out the Keycloak Documentation.

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