The MSSP Guide to Keycloak

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Keycloak is an open-source Identity and Access Management (IAM) tool. Being an Identity and Access Management (IAM) tool, it streamlines the authentication process for applications and IT services. The purpose of an IAM tool is to ensure that the right people in a company have appropriate access to resources. It usually enables the implementation of Single Sign-On (SSO), identity federation, and strong authentication. It is becoming a more and more critical topic daily to secure applications. Not only that, but it can potentially cost millions of dollars in the form of various financial penalties for unauthorized access to protected data. To manage the users’ identities and accesses, all the applications need some reliable tools. Well, you all know the use of Identity and Access Management (IAM). The main use of an IAM solution is that it acts as an Identity Provider (IdP), which means it creates, maintains, and manages the user’s digital identities as well as their authentication factors. But, the question is what is Keycloak? What are its features and benefits? How effective is it? Well, this blog has the answer to all your questions. So, be with us and know the answers to all your questions.

What Keycloak Is?

Keycloak is a tool for “Identity and Access Management” (IAM), as written above. It is an open-source tool having a license with an Apache License 2.0 .It also a project for Red Hat SSO. If you are looking for something more enterprise-centered, you can opt for this. With Keycloak, you can secure services with a minimum of time and add authentication to applications. Using Keycloak’s admin console, companies can log in with social networks very quickly. There is no code or application change. All that is required is social network selection. Administrators can streamline and manage all aspects of the Keycloak server, for instance, enabling and disabling various features using the admin console.

Features Of Keycloak

Multiple Protocols Support

Keycloak supports mainly three types of protocols, which include OpenID Connect, OAuth 2.0, and SAML 2.0.

SSO

Keycloak supports both Single Sign-On and Single Sign-Out fully.

Admin Console

A web-based GUI is offered by Keycloak, where you can “click out” all the configurations required by your instance to work as you want.

User Identity and Access

We can say that Keycloak is the standalone tool for identity and access management, which allows us to create a user database with custom roles and groups. We can use this information further to authenticate users within our application and secure parts of it based on predefined roles.

Identity Brokering

It can play the role of a proxy between your users and some external identity provider or providers. From the Keycloak Admin Panel, you can edit the lists.

Social Identity Providers

The most important feature of Keycloak is that it allows us to use Social Identity Providers. It has built-in support for Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Stack Overflow. But from the admin panel, you have to configure all of them manually. In the Keycloak documentation, you can find the full list of supported social identity providers and their configuration manual.

Pages Customization

With the help of this, you can customize all pages displayed by its users. All these pages are in .ftl format, so you can use classic HTML markups and CSS styles to make the page fit your application style and your company brand. You can also use custom JS scripts as part of the page’s customization.

Benefits Of Keycloak

Fast and flexible

There is a constant evolution of new standards, technologies, and functional requirements. Keycloak and its community adapt to these changes very quickly. The instance of current adaptation is the migration to the Quarkus (Java for the cloud) runtime. The Keycloak solution has been designed fundamentally and built for agile, fast-changing application landscapes. With high stability, it will scale up to satisfy the needs of large organizations.

Open Source Software (OSS)

There is no license or service fee for using it as it is open-source software. You can access the source code freely. As it is Open Source Software (OSS), adjustments can be made anytime and by anyone. There is no vendor lock-in. Because of this, it is low-priced, powerful and maintained continuously.

Proven and Supported

A huge community of contributors and users globally supports Keycloak and provides quick feedback and advice. Red Hat is the main contributor, and it supports Keycloak as RH-SSO in their product suites (EAP, Fuse, and others).

Authorization & Authentication

With minimum effort, it adds authentication to apps as well as security services. Log in to the system using a single account or virtual identity. There is no need to deal with storing users or authenticating users.

System Administration

It will manage the accounts of users seamlessly and maintain data as well as sessions.

Module or Standalone

It can be used as an element of an IT infrastructure or as a standalone solution.

Why Choose Sennovate’s Keycloak Server?

We at Sennovate implement and support all the suites and applications of the Keycloak Server. For example, Sennovate Keycloak IAM suites and applications include,

• Single Sign-On
• Multi-Factor Authentication
• Access Management
• Identity Management APIs.
• Directory Integration
• Fast Deployment
• Security best-practice configurations out-of-the-box

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Why Should You Choose Keycloak?

The very first and most important reason to choose Keycloak is that it is free. You must be thinking it is funny, but it’s not. Most tools with such features as AuthO or Okta are paid, but Keycloak is free. The second reason is that it supports three types of authentication protocols that will cover most of the applications with all the security demands with a single tool. You have an option to choose an authentication protocol on the basis of what you need or what you think will be better for your application, and you are not limited by the tool you are using. Rest assured that it is well-written as well as a well-designed system as it is also an upstream project for Red Hat SSO products. Apart from this, it has huge community support, which means that there are a lot of examples of how to do something and that you can count on others to help you with your problems. It can be very useful when your client has an existing user database like LDAP or Active Directory, because it has a built-in mechanism for synchronization with such identity providers.

Summing Up

I hope this guide helps you to understand what Keycloak is and how it will help your business. Apart from the above-mentioned benefits, it offers even more benefits like being it is cloud-native, helping you scale up your resources according to your needs and requirements, and much more. If you are worried about the security of your business data, you should give Keycloak a try!

FAQs

1. What is Keycloak? Keycloak is a tool for Identity and Access Management (IAM). 2. Is Keycloak free? Yes, as for now Keycloak is open-source and has Apache License 2.0. 3. Which security protocols are supported by Keycloak? As for now, it supports OpenID Connect, OAuth 2.0, and SAML 2.0. 4. Does Keycloak support SSO? Yes, it supports both Single Sign-On and Single Sign-Out. 5. What are current Keycloak distributions? As for now, it has 3 different distributions: Server, Docker image, and Operator. 6. How can I integrate Keycloak? It provides API and client library which you can use in your application. Additionally, there are several implementations of this library in many different languages. 7. Is there a tool like Keycloak with enterprise support? It is an upstream project for Red-hat SSO so I recommend checking it.

Wrapping up

Hope this blog helps you to understand how to Architect an IAM solution for your startups and the benefits of IAM solution. Creating an effective IAM program goes beyond simply monitoring network access and updating users’ accounts. Sennovate is partner with various IAM solutions like Gluu, Forgerock,  and others. Is your company ready to build an identity and access management architecture? Sennovate’s experts are here to help you.

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About Sennovate

Sennovate delivers custom identity and access management (IAM) and managed security operations center (SOC) solutions to businesses around the world. With global partners and a library of 2000+ integrations, 10M+ identities managed, we implement world-class cybersecurity solutions that save your company time and money. We offer a seamless experience with integration across all cloud applications, and a single price for product, implementation, and support. Have questions? The consultation is always free. Email [email protected] or call us at: +1 (925) 918-6618.