Spring Boot Example OpenID Connect Relying Party for Keycloak

This project is an example implementation of a OpenID Connect Relying Party built using Spring Boot and Spring Security OAuth2 Client.

Keycloak is used as the public Identity Provider for testing purposes

Quick Start

Configuring Keycloak as the Identity Provider

The Spring Boot application exposes its JWKS at http://localhost:8081/oauth2/jwks

Start Keycloak

kc start-dev

Access Keycloak at http://localhost:8080/

• Create an administrative user
• Login to the administrative console
• Create the test realm
  • Click on the Keycloak dropdown on the left navigation bar
  • Select Create Realm
  • Set test as the Realm name and click on Create
• Create the keycloak-spring-boot-example client
  • Click on Clients on the left navigation bar
  • Click on Create client
  • Set keycloak-spring-boot-example as the Client ID and click on Next
  • Toggle Client authentication to On and click on Next
  • Set http://localhost:8081/* as Valid redirect URIs, Valid post logout redirect URIs and Web origins and click on Save
  • Under Logout settings
    • Toggle Front channel logout to Off
    • Set http://localhost:8081/logout/connect/back-channel/keycloak as Backchannel logout URL and click on Save
  • Click on Credentials
  • Click on the Client Authenticator dropdown and select Signed Jwt and click on Save
  • Click on Keys
  • Toggle Use JWKS URL to On and enter http://localhost:8081/oauth2/jwks as the JWKS URL and click on Save
• Allow user registrations
  • Click on Realm settings on the left navigation bar
  • Click on Login
  • Toggle User registration to On

Installing and running the Relying Party Spring Boot application

mvn spring-boot:run

Testing the example Relying Party

Description	Endpoint
Access the application	http://localhost:8081/login-user
Logout from the application	http://localhost:8081/logout
View the public keys	http://localhost:8081/oauth2/jwks
Access Keycloak user account	http://localhost:8080/realms/test/account
Logout from Keycloak	http://localhost:8080/realms/test/protocol/openid-connect/logout

Integration Details

Note that this example does not securely store the private keys which are located in src/main/resources/jwks.json. This should be securely stored and rotated, for instance on AWS this should be stored in AWS Secrets Manager with a Secrets Manager Rotation Lambda. This can be configured in Spring using Spring Cloud AWS Secrets Manager.

Json Web Key Sets

Keycloak will call the endpoint http://localhost:8080/oauth2/jwks in order to get the public keys of the application

• The public verification key used for Keycloak to verify the signature for the private_key_jwt client assertion

The JWKSet @Bean used by the application is produced in WebSecurityConfiguration and its public keys are exposed using the @RestController JwksController. Note that JWKSet.toString() removes the private components of the keys.

Client Authentication

Keycloak was configured to use private_key_jwt client authentication by setting Signed Jwt as the Client Authenticator.

Spring needs to be configured to use this client authentication method, and the token response client needs to be configured to use the appropriate private key to perform the signing.

spring:
  security:
    oauth2:
      client:
        registration:
          keycloak:
            client-id: keycloak-spring-boot-example
            client-authentication-method: private_key_jwt
            authorization-grant-type: authorization_code
            scope:
            - openid

The DefaultAuthorizationCodeTokenResponseClient is used with the NimbusJwtClientAuthenticationParametersConverter configured with the private key and NimbusJwtClientAuthenticationParametersConverter used to customize the claims and headers on the client assertion.

OpenID Connect Relying Party Initiated Logout

Spring supports the use of the end_session_endpoint to inform Keycloak that the user is being logged out. This is done by configuring a OidcClientInitiatedLogoutSuccessHandler as the logout success handler. Upon logout success this will redirect the browser to the end_session_endpoint with the id_token_hint set. Keycloak will then redirect the browser back to the application using the post_logout_redirect_uri.

OpenID Connect Back Channel Logout

Spring supports receiving back channel logout requests from Keycloak if the user logs out from Keycloak.

http.oidcLogout(oidcLogout -> oidcLogout.backChannel(withDefaults()));

The client on Keycloak needs to be configured to

• Toggle Front channel logout to Off
• Set http://localhost:8081/logout/connect/back-channel/keycloak as Backchannel logout URL

Where keycloak corresponds to the client registration id.

Flow

sequenceDiagram
    autonumber

    participant User
    participant Browser
    participant Application Server
    participant Keycloak

    User->>Browser: Navigate to user information page

    Browser->>Application Server: Send request for user information page (/login-user)

    Application Server->>Application Server: Not authenticated, determine provider to redirect to

    Application Server-->>Browser: Redirect to Application for Keycloak provider

    Browser->>Application Server: Send request for Keycloak provider (/oauth2/authorization/keycloak)

    Application Server->>Application Server: Generate Authorization Request

    Application Server-->>Browser: Redirect to Keycloak with Authorization Request

    Browser->>Keycloak: Send Authorization Request (/realms/test/protocol/openid-connect/auth)

    Keycloak->>Keycloak: Generate login page

    Keycloak-->>Browser: Return login page

    User->>Browser: Enter login credentials and sign in

    Browser->>Keycloak: Send login credentials 

    Keycloak->>Keycloak: Process login credentials

    Keycloak-->>Browser: Redirect to Application with Authorization Response with code

    Browser->>Application Server: Send Authorization Response with code (/login/oauth2/code/keycloak)

    Application Server->>Application Server: Generate Token Request and client credentials

    Application Server->>Keycloak: Send Token Request with client credentials (/realms/test/protocol/openid-connect/token)

    Keycloak->>Application Server: Send request for client json web key set (/oauth2/jwks)

    Application Server-->>Keycloak: Return client json web key set

    Keycloak->>Keycloak: Process client credentials and create tokens

    Keycloak-->>Application Server: Return Token Response with access, refresh and id tokens

    Application Server-->>Browser: Redirect to user information page

    Browser->>Application Server: Send request for user information page (/login-user)

    Application Server->>Application Server: Authenticated

    Application Server-->>Browser: Return user information page