user management Archives

Simplify the management of user roles in Spring Boot

25th March 20228th April 2022 little_pineconeSpring Boot

Spring Security allows us to use role-based control to restrict access to API resources. However, inserting role names as simple strings can quickly become cumbersome and increase development cost. Fortunately, we can enclose role details in an Enum and use custom annotations to simplify management of user roles in a Spring Boot application. While it still doesn’t provide type-safe roles, most IDEs will be able to support changes in the code and simplify maintenance.

Keycloak with Spring Boot #4 – Simple guide for roles and authorities

27th February 202225th March 2022 little_pineconeSpring Boot

Delegating user management to Keycloak allows us to better focus on meeting the business needs of an application. However, we still need to provide the appropriate configuration to translate user roles and privileges between Keycloak and Spring Boot. Additionally, we’re going to need some handy techniques for debugging how roles are converted between the two services.

Keycloak with Spring Boot #1 – Configure Spring Security with Keycloak

24th February 202224th February 2022 little_pineconeSpring Boot

Keycloak provides simple integration with Spring applications. As a result, we can easily configure our Spring Boot API security to delegate authentication and authorization to a Keycloak server.

Kecloak in Docker #7 – How to authorize requests via Postman

8th February 202220th February 2022 little_pineconeTools

Postman comes with a wide variety of OAuth 2.0 compliant configuration options that allow us to authorize requests against a Keycloak protected API. The current standard recommendation is to use Authorization Code Flow with PKCE extension.

Keycloak in Docker #6 – How to import realms from a directory

3rd February 202216th February 2022 little_pineconeTools

If we want to import multiple Keycloak realms, or realm resources are split into multiple files, we need to execute a directory import at boot time. Fortunately, running a Keycloak service with Docker makes this task easy.

Keycloak in Docker #5 – How to export a realm with users and secrets

2nd February 202216th February 2022 little_pineconeTools

Running a Keycloak service in a Docker container allows us to share its configuration across multiple environments. However, we can also export an entire Keycloak realm in case we need any backups or data transfer between servers.

Keycloak in Docker #4 – How to define user privileges and roles

25th December 202127th February 2022 little_pineconeTools

Keycloak offers a wide variety of methods for defining user permissions and roles. We can configure privileges across a realm or a specific client application. In addition, we can combine permissions by assigning users to groups or creating composite roles.

Keycloak in Docker #3 – How to customise Keycloak themes

20th August 202116th February 2022 little_pineconeTools

Keycloak allows us to customise its themes. This enables us to provide a user interface that remains consistent across all of our applications, ensuring a better user experience for everyone.

Keycloak in Docker #2 – How to import a Keycloak realm

20th August 202123rd March 2022 little_pineconeTools

Having a dockerized Keycloak service that works out-of-the-box and contains an imported realm with its default users is very useful. Not only does this greatly simplify the setup process, it also allows us to share a replicable Keycloak instance with other developers.

Keycloak in Docker #1 – How to run Keycloak in a Docker container

20th August 202120th February 2022 little_pineconeTools

Keycloak is an open source project that is a convenient option for delegating authentication and user management. It allows us to focus more on delivering business value to our projects. A proper Docker configuration for this service will come in handy whenever we need to run it locally.