Securing Keycloak

In this section, we will look at some important aspects of securing the Keycloak server itself. We will start by looking at an example of a secure Keycloak deployment, as shown in the following diagram:

Figure 14.1 – An example of a secure deployment

In this example, Keycloak and its database are isolated from users and applications with a Web Application Firewall (WAF), all network requests are encrypted, and the database is also encrypted.

Let's look at this in a bit more detail, starting with why Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a requirement for any ingoing and outgoing traffic to Keycloak.

Encrypting communication to Keycloak

It is recommended to use end-to-end encryption for all communication to and from Keycloak. This means always using HTTPS, and never using HTTP. At the time of writing this book, the most recent security layer in HTTPS is TLS 1.3, so this is what you should use whenever possible. Most HTTP libraries...