Chapter 11. Admin Console Access Control and Permissions
Each realm created on the Red Hat Single Sign-On has a dedicated Admin Console from which that realm can be managed. The master realm is a special realm that allows admins to manage more than one realm on the system. You can also define fine-grained access to users in different realms to manage the server. This chapter goes over all the scenarios for this.
11.1. Master Realm Access Control
The master realm in Red Hat Single Sign-On is a special realm and treated differently than other realms. Users in the Red Hat Single Sign-On master realm can be granted permission to manage zero or more realms that are deployed on the Red Hat Single Sign-On server. When a realm is created, Red Hat Single Sign-On automatically creates various roles that grant fine-grain permissions to access that new realm. Access to The Admin Console and Admin REST endpoints can be controlled by mapping these roles to users in the master realm. It’s possible to create multiple super users, as well as users that can only manage specific realms.
11.1.1. Global Roles
There are two realm-level roles in the master realm. These are:
- admin
- create-realm
Users with the admin role are super users and have full access to manage any realm on the server. Users with the create-realm role are allowed to create new realms. They will be granted full access to any new realm they create.
11.1.2. Realm Specific Roles
Admin users within the master realm can be granted management privileges to one or more other realms in the system. Each realm in Red Hat Single Sign-On is represented by a client in the master realm. The name of the client is <realm name>-realm. These clients each have client-level roles defined which define varying level of access to manage an individual realm.
The roles available are:
- view-realm
- view-users
- view-clients
- view-events
- manage-realm
- manage-users
- create-client
- manage-clients
- manage-events
- view-identity-providers
- manage-identity-providers
- impersonation
Assign the roles you want to your users and they will only be able to use that specific part of the administration console.
11.2. Dedicated Realm Admin Consoles
Each realm has a dedicated Admin Console that can be accessed by going to the url /auth/admin/{realm-name}/console. Users within that realm can be granted realm management permissions by assigning specific user role mappings.
Each realm has a built-in client called realm-management. You can view this client by going to the Clients left menu item of your realm. This client defines client-level roles that specify permissions that can be granted to manage the realm.
- view-realm
- view-users
- view-clients
- view-events
- manage-realm
- manage-users
- create-client
- manage-clients
- manage-events
- view-identity-providers
- manage-identity-providers
- impersonation
Assign the roles you want to your users and they will only be able to use that specific part of the administration console.
11.3. Realm Keys
The authentication protocols that are used by Red Hat Single Sign-On require cryptographic signatures and sometimes encryption. Red Hat Single Sign-On uses asymmetric key pairs, a private and public key, to accomplish this.
Red Hat Single Sign-On has a single active keypair at a time, but can have several passive keys as well. The active keypair is used to create new signatures, while the passive keypairs can be used to verify previous signatures. This makes it possible to regularly rotate the keys without any downtime or interruption to users.
When a realm is created a key pair and a self-signed certificate is automatically generated.
To view the active keys for a realm select the realm in the admin console click on Realm settings then Keys. This will show the currently active keys for the realm. Red Hat Single Sign-On currently only supports RSA signatures so there is only one active keypair. In the future as more signature algorithms are added there will be more active keypairs.
To view all available keys select All. This will show all active, passive and disabled keys. A keypair can have the status Active, but still not be selected as the currently active keypair for the realm. The selected active pair which is used for signatures is selected based on the first key provider sorted by priority that is able to provide an active keypair.
11.3.1. Rotating keys
It’s recommended to regularly rotate keys. To do so you should start by creating new keys with a higher priority than the existing active keys. Or create new keys with the same priority and making the previous keys passive.
Once new keys are available all new tokens and cookies will be signed with the new keys. When a user authenticates to an application the SSO cookie is updated with the new signature. When OpenID Connect tokens are refreshed new tokens are signed with the new keys. This means that over time all cookies and tokens will use the new keys and after a while the old keys can be removed.
How long you wait to delete old keys is a tradeoff between security and making sure all cookies and tokens are updated. In general it should be acceptable to drop old keys after a few weeks. Users that have not been active in the period between the new keys where added and the old keys removed will have to re-authenticate.
This also applies to offline tokens. To make sure they are updated the applications need to refresh the tokens before the old keys are removed.
As a guideline it may be a good idea to create new keys every 3-6 months and delete old keys 1-2 months after the new keys where created.
11.3.2. Adding a generated keypair
To add a new generated keypair select Providers and choose rsa-generated from the dropdown. You can change the priority to make sure the new keypair becomes the active keypair. You can also change the keysize if you want smaller or larger keys (default is 2048, supported values are 1024, 2048 and 4096).
Click Save to add the new keys. This will generated a new keypair including a self-signed certificate.
Changing the priority for a provider will not cause the keys to be re-generated, but if you want to change the keysize you can edit the provider and new keys will be generated.
11.3.3. Adding an existing keypair and certificate
To add a keypair and certificate obtained elsewhere select Providers and choose rsa from the dropdown. You can change the priority to make sure the new keypair becomes the active keypair.
Click on Select file for Private RSA Key to upload your private key. The file should be encoded in PEM format. You don’t need to upload the public key as it is automatically extracted from the private key.
If you have a signed certificate for the keys click on Select file next to X509 Certificate. If you don’t have one you can skip this and a self-signed certificate will be generated.
11.3.4. Loading keys from a Java Keystore
To add a keypair and certificate stored in a Java Keystore file on the host select Providers and choose java-keystore from the dropdown. You can change the priority to make sure the new keypair becomes the active keypair.
Fill in the values for Keystore, Keystore Password, Key Alias and Key Password and click on Save.
11.3.5. Making keys passive
Locate the keypair in Active or All then click on the provider in the Provider column. This will take you to the configuration screen for the key provider for the keys. Click on Active to turn it OFF, then click on Save. The keys will no longer be active and can only be used for verifying signatures.
11.3.6. Disabling keys
Locate the keypair in Active or All then click on the provider in the Provider column. This will take you to the configuration screen for the key provider for the keys. Click on Enabled to turn it OFF, then click on Save. The keys will no longer be enabled.
Alternatively, you can delete the provider from the Providers table.
11.3.7. Compromised keys
Red Hat Single Sign-On has the signing keys stored just locally and they are never shared with the client applications, users or other entities. However if you think that your realm signing key was compromised, you should first generate new keypair as described above and then immediatelly remove the compromised keypair.
Then to ensure that client applications won’t accept the tokens signed by the compromised key, you should update and push not-before policy for the realm, which is doable from the admin console. Pushing new policy will ensure that client applications won’t accept the existing tokens signed by the compromised key, but also the client application will be forced to download new keypair from the Red Hat Single Sign-On, hence the tokens signed by the compromised key won’t be valid anymore. Note that your REST and confidential clients must have set Admin URL, so that Red Hat Single Sign-On is able to send them the request about pushed not-before policy.
