Operator Guide

Once the Red Hat build of Keycloak Operator is installed and running in the cluster namespace, you can set up the other deployment prerequisites.

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: StatefulSet
metadata:
  name: postgresql-db
spec:
  serviceName: postgresql-db-service
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: postgresql-db
  replicas: 1
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: postgresql-db
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: postgresql-db
          image: postgres:15
          volumeMounts:
            - mountPath: /data
              name: cache-volume
          env:
            - name: POSTGRES_USER
              value: testuser
            - name: POSTGRES_PASSWORD
              value: testpassword
            - name: PGDATA
              value: /data/pgdata
            - name: POSTGRES_DB
              value: keycloak
      volumes:
        - name: cache-volume
          emptyDir: {}
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: postgres-db
spec:
  selector:
    app: postgresql-db
  type: LoadBalancer
  ports:
  - port: 5432
    targetPort: 5432

oc apply -f example-postgres.yaml

openssl req -subj '/CN=test.keycloak.org/O=Test Keycloak./C=US' -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout key.pem -x509 -days 365 -out certificate.pem

oc create secret tls example-tls-secret --cert certificate.pem --key key.pem

To deploy Red Hat build of Keycloak, you create a Custom Resource (CR) based on the Keycloak Custom Resource Definition (CRD).

Consider storing the Database credentials in a separate Secret. Enter the following commands:

oc create secret generic keycloak-db-secret \
  --from-literal=username=[your_database_username] \
  --from-literal=password=[your_database_password]

You can customize several fields using the Keycloak CRD. For a basic deployment, you can stick to the following approach:

Create YAML file example-kc.yaml:

apiVersion: k8s.keycloak.org/v2alpha1
kind: Keycloak
metadata:
  name: example-kc
spec:
  instances: 1
  db:
    vendor: postgres
    host: postgres-db
    usernameSecret:
      name: keycloak-db-secret
      key: username
    passwordSecret:
      name: keycloak-db-secret
      key: password
  http:
    tlsSecret: example-tls-secret
  hostname:
    hostname: test.keycloak.org
  proxy:
    headers: xforwarded # double check your reverse proxy sets and overwrites the X-Forwarded-* headers

Apply the changes:

oc apply -f example-kc.yaml

To check that the Red Hat build of Keycloak instance has been provisioned in the cluster, check the status of the created CR by entering the following command:

oc get keycloaks/example-kc -o go-template='{{range .status.conditions}}CONDITION: {{.type}}{{"\n"}}  STATUS: {{.status}}{{"\n"}}  MESSAGE: {{.message}}{{"\n"}}{{end}}'

When the deployment is ready, look for output similar to the following:

CONDITION: Ready
  STATUS: true
  MESSAGE:
CONDITION: HasErrors
  STATUS: false
  MESSAGE:
CONDITION: RollingUpdate
  STATUS: false
  MESSAGE:

The Red Hat build of Keycloak deployment is exposed through a basic Ingress and is accessible through the provided hostname. On installations with multiple default IngressClass instances or when running on OpenShift 4.12+ you should provide an ingressClassName by setting ingress spec with className property to the desired class name:

Edit YAML file example-kc.yaml:

apiVersion: k8s.keycloak.org/v2alpha1
kind: Keycloak
metadata:
  name: example-kc
spec:
    ...
    ingress:
      className: openshift-default

If the default ingress does not fit your use case, disable it by setting ingress spec with enabled property to false value:

Edit YAML file example-kc.yaml:

apiVersion: k8s.keycloak.org/v2alpha1
kind: Keycloak
metadata:
  name: example-kc
spec:
    ...
    ingress:
      enabled: false

Apply the changes:

oc apply -f example-kc.yaml

You can provide an alternative ingress resource pointing to the service <keycloak-cr-name>-service.

For debugging and development purposes, consider directly connecting to the Red Hat build of Keycloak service using a port forward. For example, enter this command:

oc port-forward service/example-kc-service 8443:8443

apiVersion: k8s.keycloak.org/v2alpha1
kind: Keycloak
metadata:
  name: example-kc
spec:
  ...
  proxy:
    headers: forwarded|xforwarded

When deploying Red Hat build of Keycloak, the operator generates an arbitrary initial admin username and password and stores those credentials as a basic-auth Secret object in the same namespace as the CR.

To fetch the initial admin credentials, you have to read and decode the Secret. The Secret name is derived from the Keycloak CR name plus the fixed suffix -initial-admin. To get the username and password for the example-kc CR, enter the following commands:

oc get secret example-kc-initial-admin -o jsonpath='{.data.username}' | base64 --decode
oc get secret example-kc-initial-admin -o jsonpath='{.data.password}' | base64 --decode

You can use those credentials to access the Admin Console or the Admin REST API.

The following is an example of a Realm Import Custom Resource (CR):

apiVersion: k8s.keycloak.org/v2alpha1
kind: KeycloakRealmImport
metadata:
  name: my-realm-kc
spec:
  keycloakCRName: <name of the keycloak CR>
  realm:
    ...

This CR should be created in the same namespace as the Keycloak Deployment CR, defined in the field keycloakCRName. The realm field accepts a full RealmRepresentation.

The recommended way to obtain a RealmRepresentation is by leveraging the export functionality Importing and Exporting Realms.

Use oc to create the CR in the correct cluster namespace:

Create YAML file example-realm-import.yaml:

apiVersion: k8s.keycloak.org/v2alpha1
kind: KeycloakRealmImport
metadata:
  name: my-realm-kc
spec:
  keycloakCRName: <name of the keycloak CR>
  realm:
    id: example-realm
    realm: example-realm
    displayName: ExampleRealm
    enabled: true

Apply the changes:

oc apply -f example-realm-import.yaml

To check the status of the running import, enter the following command:

oc get keycloakrealmimports/my-realm-kc -o go-template='{{range .status.conditions}}CONDITION: {{.type}}{{"\n"}}  STATUS: {{.status}}{{"\n"}}  MESSAGE: {{.message}}{{"\n"}}{{end}}'

When the import has successfully completed, the output will look like the following example:

CONDITION: Done
  STATUS: true
  MESSAGE:
CONDITION: Started
  STATUS: false
  MESSAGE:
CONDITION: HasErrors
  STATUS: false
  MESSAGE:

Imports support placeholders referencing environment variables, see Importing and Exporting Realms for more. The KeycloakRealmImport CR allows you to leverage this functionality via the spec.placeholders stanza, for example:

apiVersion: k8s.keycloak.org/v2alpha1
kind: KeycloakRealmImport
metadata:
  name: my-realm-kc
spec:
  keycloakCRName: <name of the keycloak CR>
  placeholders:
    ENV_KEY:
      secret:
        name: SECRET_NAME
        key: SECRET_KEY
    ...

In the above example placeholder replacement will be enabled and an environment variable with key ENV_KEY will be created from the Secret SECRET_NAME’s value for key `SECRET_KEY. Currently only Secrets are supported and they must be in the same namespace as the Keycloak CR.

Many server options are exposed as first-class citizen fields in the Keycloak CR. The structure of the CR is based on the configuration structure of Red Hat build of Keycloak. For example, to configure the https-port of the server, follow a similar pattern in the CR and use the httpsPort field. The following example is a complex server configuration; however, it illustrates the relationship between server options and the Keycloak CR:

apiVersion: k8s.keycloak.org/v2alpha1
kind: Keycloak
metadata:
  name: example-kc
spec:
  db:
    vendor: postgres
    usernameSecret:
      name: usernameSecret
      key: usernameSecretKey
    passwordSecret:
      name: passwordSecret
      key: passwordSecretKey
    host: host
    database: database
    port: 123
    schema: schema
    poolInitialSize: 1
    poolMinSize: 2
    poolMaxSize: 3
  http:
    httpEnabled: true
    httpPort: 8180
    httpsPort: 8543
    tlsSecret: my-tls-secret
  hostname:
    hostname: https://my-hostname.tld
    admin: https://my-hostname.tld/admin
    strict: false
    backchannelDynamic: true
  features:
    enabled:
      - docker
      - authorization
    disabled:
      - admin
      - step-up-authentication
  transaction:
    xaEnabled: false

For a list of options, see the Keycloak CRD. For details on configuring options, see All configuration.

apiVersion: k8s.keycloak.org/v2alpha1
kind: Keycloak
metadata:
  name: example-kc
spec:
  ...
  additionalOptions:
    - name: spi-connections-http-client-default-connection-pool-size
      secret: # Secret reference
        name: http-client-secret # name of the Secret
        key: poolSize # name of the Key in the Secret
    - name: spi-email-template-mycustomprovider-enabled
      value: true # plain text value

Secret References are used by some dedicated options in the Keycloak CR, such as tlsSecret, or as a value in additionalOptions.

Similarly ConfigMap References are used by options such as the configMapFile.

When specifying a Secret or ConfigMap Reference, make sure that a Secret or ConfigMap containing the referenced keys is present in the same namespace as the CR referencing it.

The operator will poll approximately every minute for changes to referenced Secrets or ConfigMaps. When a meaningful change is detected, the Operator performs a rolling restart of the Red Hat build of Keycloak Deployment to pick up the changes.

The unsupported field of the CR contains highly experimental configuration options that are not completely tested and are Tech Preview.

apiVersion: k8s.keycloak.org/v2alpha1
kind: Keycloak
metadata:
  name: example-kc
spec:
  ...
  unsupported:
    podTemplate:
      metadata:
        labels:
          my-label: "keycloak"
      spec:
        containers:
          - volumeMounts:
              - name: test-volume
                mountPath: /mnt/test
        volumes:
          - name: test-volume
            secret:
              secretName: keycloak-additional-secret

Red Hat build of Keycloak and the Red Hat build of Keycloak Operator provide the best production-ready experience with security in mind. However, during the development phase, you can disable key security features.

Specifically, you can disable the hostname and TLS as shown in the following example:

apiVersion: k8s.keycloak.org/v2alpha1
kind: Keycloak
metadata:
  name: example-kc
spec:
  ...
  http:
    httpEnabled: true
  hostname:
    strict: false

The Keycloak CR allows specifying the resources options for managing compute resources for the Red Hat build of Keycloak container. It provides the ability to request and limit resources independently for the main Keycloak deployment via the Keycloak CR, and for the realm import Job via the Realm Import CR.

When no values are specified, the default requests memory is set to 1700MiB, and the limits memory is set to 2GiB. These values were chosen based on a deeper analysis of Red Hat build of Keycloak memory management.

If no values are specified in the Realm Import CR, it falls back to the values specified in the Keycloak CR, or to the defaults as defined above.

You can specify your custom values based on your requirements as follows:

apiVersion: k8s.keycloak.org/v2alpha1
kind: Keycloak
metadata:
  name: example-kc
spec:
  ...
  resources:
    requests:
      cpu: 1200m
      memory: 896Mi
    limits:
      cpu: 6
      memory: 3Gi

Moreover, the Red Hat build of Keycloak container manages the heap size more effectively by providing relative values for the heap size. It is achieved by providing certain JVM options.

For more details, see Running Red Hat build of Keycloak in a container.

You may control several aspects of the server Pod scheduling via the Keycloak CR. The scheduling stanza exposes optional standard Kubernetes affinity, tolerations, topology spread constraints, and the priority class name to fine tune the scheduling and placement of your server Pods.

An example utilizing all scheduling fields:

apiVersion: k8s.keycloak.org/v2alpha1
kind: Keycloak
metadata:
  name: example-kc
spec:
  scheduling:
    priorityClassName: custom-high
    affinity:
      podAffinity:
        preferredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution:
        - podAffinityTerm:
            labelSelector:
              matchLabels:
                app: keycloak
                app.kubernetes.io/managed-by: keycloak-operator
                app.kubernetes.io/component: server
                topologyKey: topology.kubernetes.io/zone
              weight: 10
    tolerations:
    - key: "some-taint"
      operator: "Exists"
      effect: "NoSchedule"
    topologySpreadConstraints:
    - maxSkew: 1
      topologyKey: kubernetes.io/hostname
      whenUnsatisfiable: DoNotSchedule
      ...
  ...

Please see the kubernetes docs for more on scheduling concepts.

If you do not specify a custom affinity, your Pods will have an affinity for the same zone and an anti-affinity for the same node to improve availability. Scheduling to the same zone if possible helps prevent stretch clusters where cross zone cache cluster traffic may have too high of a latency.

To change the port of the management interface, use the first-class citizen field httpManagement.port in the Keycloak CR. To change the properties of the management interface, you can do it by providing additionalOptions field.

You can specify the port and the additionalOptions as follows:

apiVersion: k8s.keycloak.org/v2alpha1
kind: Keycloak
metadata:
  name: example-kc
spec:
  httpManagement:
    port: 9001
  additionalOptions:
    - name: http-management-relative-path
      value: /management

If you need to provide trusted certificates, the Keycloak CR provides a top level feature for configuring the server’s truststore as discussed in Configuring trusted certificates.

Use the truststores stanza of the Keycloak spec to specify Secrets containing PEM encoded files, or PKCS12 files with extension .p12 or .pfx, for example:

apiVersion: k8s.keycloak.org/v2alpha1
kind: Keycloak
metadata:
  name: example-kc
spec:
  ...
  truststores:
    my-truststore:
      secret:
        name: my-secret

Where the contents of my-secret could be a PEM file, for example:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: my-secret
stringData:
  cert.pem: |
    -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
    ...

When running on a Kubernetes or OpenShift environment well-known locations of trusted certificates are included automatically. This includes /var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/ca.crt and the /var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/service-ca.crt when present.

When you create a new instance the Keycloak CR spec.bootstrapAdmin stanza may be used to configure the bootstrap user and/or service account. If you do not specify anything for the spec.bootstrapAdmin, the operator will create a Secret named "metadata.name"-initial-admin with a username temp-admin and a generated password. If you specify a Secret name for bootstrap admin user, then the Secret will need to contain username and password key value pairs. If you specify a Secret name for bootstrap admin service account, then the Secret will need to contain client-id and client-secret key value pairs.

If a master realm has already been created for you cluster, then the spec.boostrapAdmin is effectively ignored. If you need to create a recovery admin account, then you’ll need to run the CLI command against a Pod directly.

For more information on how to bootstrap a temporary admin user or service account and recover lost admin access, refer to the Admin bootstrap and recovery guide.

When using the default Red Hat build of Keycloak image, the server will perform a costly re-augmentation every time a Pod starts. To avoid this delay, you can provide a custom image with the augmentation built-in from the build time of the image.

With a custom image, you can also specify the Keycloak build-time configurations and extensions during the build of the container.

For instructions on how to build such an image, see Running Red Hat build of Keycloak in a container.

To provide a custom image, you define the image field in the Keycloak CR as shown in this example:

apiVersion: k8s.keycloak.org/v2alpha1
kind: Keycloak
metadata:
  name: example-kc
spec:
  instances: 1
  image: quay.io/my-company/my-keycloak:latest
  http:
    tlsSecret: example-tls-secret
  hostname:
    hostname: test.keycloak.org

While it is considered a best practice use a pre-augmented image, if you want to use a non-optimized custom image or build time properties with an augmented image that is still possible. You just need set the startOptimzed field to false as shown in this example:

apiVersion: k8s.keycloak.org/v2alpha1
kind: Keycloak
metadata:
  name: example-kc
spec:
  instances: 1
  image: quay.io/my-company/my-keycloak:latest
  startOptimized: false
  http:
    tlsSecret: example-tls-secret
  hostname:
    hostname: test.keycloak.org

Keep in mind this will incur the re-augmentation cost on every start.