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Protect a service application by using OpenID Connect (OIDC) Bearer token authentication

Use the Quarkus OpenID Connect (OIDC) extension to secure a Jakarta REST application with Bearer token authentication. The bearer tokens are issued by OIDC and OAuth 2.0 compliant authorization servers, such as Keycloak.

For more information about OIDC Bearer token authentication, see the Quarkus OpenID Connect (OIDC) Bearer token authentication guide.

If you want to protect web applications by using OIDC Authorization Code Flow authentication, see the OpenID Connect authorization code flow mechanism for protecting web applications guide.

Prerequisites

To complete this guide, you need:

  • Roughly 15 minutes

  • An IDE

  • JDK 17+ installed with JAVA_HOME configured appropriately

  • Apache Maven 3.9.9

  • A working container runtime (Docker or Podman)

  • Optionally the Quarkus CLI if you want to use it

  • Optionally Mandrel or GraalVM installed and configured appropriately if you want to build a native executable (or Docker if you use a native container build)

  • The jq command-line processor tool

Architecture

This example shows how you can build a simple microservice that offers two endpoints:

  • /api/users/me

  • /api/admin

These endpoints are protected and can only be accessed if a client sends a bearer token along with the request, which must be valid (for example, signature, expiration, and audience) and trusted by the microservice.

A Keycloak server issues the bearer token and represents the subject for which the token was issued. Because it is an OAuth 2.0 authorization server, the token also references the client acting on the user’s behalf.

Any user with a valid token can access the /api/users/me endpoint. As a response, it returns a JSON document with user details obtained from the information in the token.

The /api/admin endpoint is protected with RBAC (Role-Based Access Control), which only users with the admin role can access. At this endpoint, the @RolesAllowed annotation is used to enforce the access constraint declaratively.

Solution

Follow the instructions in the next sections and create the application step by step. You can also go straight to the completed example.

You can clone the Git repository by running the command git clone https://github.com/quarkusio/quarkus-quickstarts.git, or you can download an archive.

The solution is located in the security-openid-connect-quickstart directory.

Create the Maven project

You can either create a new Maven project with the oidc extension or you can add the extension to an existing Maven project. Complete one of the following commands:

To create a new Maven project, use the following command:

CLI
quarkus create app org.acme:security-openid-connect-quickstart \
    --extension='oidc,rest-jackson' \
    --no-code
cd security-openid-connect-quickstart

To create a Gradle project, add the --gradle or --gradle-kotlin-dsl option.

For more information about how to install and use the Quarkus CLI, see the Quarkus CLI guide.

Maven
mvn io.quarkus.platform:quarkus-maven-plugin:3.22.3:create \
    -DprojectGroupId=org.acme \
    -DprojectArtifactId=security-openid-connect-quickstart \
    -Dextensions='oidc,rest-jackson' \
    -DnoCode
cd security-openid-connect-quickstart

To create a Gradle project, add the -DbuildTool=gradle or -DbuildTool=gradle-kotlin-dsl option.

For Windows users:

  • If using cmd, (don’t use backward slash \ and put everything on the same line)

  • If using Powershell, wrap -D parameters in double quotes e.g. "-DprojectArtifactId=security-openid-connect-quickstart"

If you already have your Quarkus project configured, you can add the oidc extension to your project by running the following command in your project base directory:

CLI
quarkus extension add oidc
Maven
./mvnw quarkus:add-extension -Dextensions='oidc'
Gradle
./gradlew addExtension --extensions='oidc'

This will add the following to your build file:

pom.xml
<dependency>
   <groupId>io.quarkus</groupId>
   <artifactId>quarkus-oidc</artifactId>
</dependency>
build.gradle
implementation("io.quarkus:quarkus-oidc")

Write the application

  1. Implement the /api/users/me endpoint as shown in the following example, which is a regular Jakarta REST resource:

    package org.acme.security.openid.connect;

import jakarta.annotation.security.RolesAllowed;
import jakarta.inject.Inject;
import jakarta.ws.rs.GET;
import jakarta.ws.rs.Path;

import org.jboss.resteasy.reactive.NoCache;
import io.quarkus.security.identity.SecurityIdentity;

@Path("/api/users")
public class UsersResource {

    @Inject
    SecurityIdentity securityIdentity;

    @GET
    @Path("/me")
    @RolesAllowed("user")
    @NoCache
    public User me() {
        return new User(securityIdentity);
    }

    public static class User {

        private final String userName;

        User(SecurityIdentity securityIdentity) {
            this.userName = securityIdentity.getPrincipal().getName();
        }

        public String getUserName() {
            return userName;
        }
    }
}

  2. Implement the /api/admin endpoint as shown in the following example:

    package org.acme.security.openid.connect;

import jakarta.annotation.security.RolesAllowed;
import jakarta.ws.rs.GET;
import jakarta.ws.rs.Path;
import jakarta.ws.rs.Produces;
import jakarta.ws.rs.core.MediaType;

@Path("/api/admin")
public class AdminResource {

    @GET
    @RolesAllowed("admin")
    @Produces(MediaType.TEXT_PLAIN)
    public String admin() {
        return "granted";
    }
}

    The main difference in this example is that the @RolesAllowed annotation is used to verify that only users granted the admin role can access the endpoint.

Injection of the SecurityIdentity is supported in both @RequestScoped and @ApplicationScoped contexts.

Configure the application

  • Configure the Quarkus OpenID Connect (OIDC) extension by setting the following configuration properties in the src/main/resources/application.properties file.

    %prod.quarkus.oidc.auth-server-url=http://localhost:8180/realms/quarkus
quarkus.oidc.client-id=backend-service
quarkus.oidc.credentials.secret=secret

# Tell Dev Services for Keycloak to import the realm file
# This property is not effective when running the application in JVM or native modes

quarkus.keycloak.devservices.realm-path=quarkus-realm.json

Where:

  • %prod.quarkus.oidc.auth-server-url sets the base URL of the OpenID Connect (OIDC) server. The %prod. profile prefix ensures that Dev Services for Keycloak launches a container when you run the application in development (dev) mode. For more information, see the Run the application in dev mode section.

  • quarkus.oidc.client-id sets a client id that identifies the application.

  • quarkus.oidc.credentials.secret sets the client secret, which is used by the client_secret_basic authentication method.

For more information, see the Quarkus OpenID Connect (OIDC) configuration properties guide.

Start and configure the Keycloak server

  1. Put the realm configuration file on the classpath (target/classes directory) so that it gets imported automatically when running in dev mode. You do not need to do this if you have already built a complete solution, in which case, this realm file is added to the classpath during the build.

    Do not start the Keycloak server when you run the application in dev mode; Dev Services for Keycloak will start a container. For more information, see the Run the application in dev mode section.

  2. To start a Keycloak server, you can use Docker to run the following command:

    docker run --name keycloak -e KC_BOOTSTRAP_ADMIN_USERNAME=admin -e KC_BOOTSTRAP_ADMIN_PASSWORD=admin -p 8180:8080 quay.io/keycloak/keycloak:{keycloak.version} start-dev

    • Where the keycloak.version is set to version 26.1.3 or later.

  3. You can access your Keycloak server at localhost:8180.

  4. To access the Keycloak Administration console, log in as the admin user by using the following login credentials:

    • Username: admin

    • Password: admin

  5. Import the realm configuration file from the upstream community repository to create a new realm.

For more information, see the Keycloak documentation about creating and configuring a new realm.

To configure the Keycloak server from your application by using the Keycloak Admin Client, include one of the following extensions based on your setup:

  • For Quarkus REST: If you are using quarkus-rest, quarkus-rest-client, or both, include the quarkus-keycloak-admin-rest-client extension.

  • For RESTEasy Classic: If you are using quarkus-resteasy, quarkus-resteasy-client, or both, include the quarkus-keycloak-admin-resteasy-client extension.

  • If no REST layer is explicitly used: It is recommended to include the quarkus-keycloak-admin-rest-client extension.

These guidelines ensure seamless integration of the Keycloak Admin Client with your REST framework, whether you are working with a REST server, a REST client, or both.

For more information, see the Quarkus Keycloak Admin Client guide.

Run the application in dev mode

  1. To run the application in dev mode, run the following commands:

    CLI
    quarkus dev
    Maven
    ./mvnw quarkus:dev
    Gradle
    ./gradlew --console=plain quarkusDev

  2. Open a Dev UI, which you can find at /q/dev-ui. Then, in an OpenID Connect card, click the Keycloak provider link .

  3. When prompted to log in to a Single Page Application provided by OpenID Connect Dev UI, do the following steps:

    • Log in as alice (password: alice), who has a user role.

      • Accessing /api/admin returns a 403 status code.

      • Accessing /api/users/me returns a 200 status code.

    • Log out and log in again as admin (password: admin), who has both admin and user roles.

      • Accessing /api/admin returns a 200 status code.

      • Accessing /api/users/me returns a 200 status code.

Run the Application in JVM mode

When you are done with dev mode, you can run the application as a standard Java application.

  1. Compile the application:

    CLI
    quarkus build
    Maven
    ./mvnw install
    Gradle
    ./gradlew build

  2. Run the application:

    java -jar target/quarkus-app/quarkus-run.jar

Run the application in native mode

You can compile this same demo as-is into native mode without any modifications. This implies that you no longer need to install a JVM on your production environment. The runtime technology is included in the produced binary and optimized to run with minimal resources required.

Compilation takes a bit longer, so this step is disabled by default.

  1. Build your application again by enabling the native profile:

    CLI
    quarkus build --native
    Maven
    ./mvnw install -Dnative
    Gradle
    ./gradlew build -Dquarkus.native.enabled=true

  2. After waiting a little while, you run the following binary directly:

    ./target/security-openid-connect-quickstart-1.0.0-SNAPSHOT-runner

Test the application

For information about testing your application in dev mode, see the preceding Run the application in dev mode section.

You can test the application launched in JVM or native modes with curl.

  • Because the application uses Bearer token authentication, you must first obtain an access token from the Keycloak server to access the application resources:

export access_token=$(\
    curl --insecure -X POST http://localhost:8180/realms/quarkus/protocol/openid-connect/token \
    --user backend-service:secret \
    -H 'content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded' \
    -d 'username=alice&password=alice&grant_type=password' | jq --raw-output '.access_token' \
 )

When the quarkus.oidc.authentication.user-info-required property is set to true to require that an access token is used to request UserInfo, you must add a scope=openid query parameter to the token grant request command, for example:

export access_token=$(\
    curl --insecure -X POST http://localhost:8180/realms/quarkus/protocol/openid-connect/token \
    --user backend-service:secret \
    -H 'content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded' \
    -d 'username=alice&password=alice&grant_type=password&scope=openid' | jq --raw-output '.access_token' \
 )

The preceding example obtains an access token for the user alice.

curl -v -X GET \
  http://localhost:8080/api/users/me \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer "$access_token

  • Only users with the admin role can access the http://localhost:8080/api/admin endpoint. If you try to access this endpoint with the previously-issued access token, you get a 403 response from the server.

curl -v -X GET \
   http://localhost:8080/api/admin \
   -H "Authorization: Bearer "$access_token

  • To access the admin endpoint, obtain a token for the admin user:

export access_token=$(\
    curl --insecure -X POST http://localhost:8180/realms/quarkus/protocol/openid-connect/token \
    --user backend-service:secret \
    -H 'content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded' \
    -d 'username=admin&password=admin&grant_type=password' | jq --raw-output '.access_token' \
 )

For information about writing integration tests that depend on Dev Services for Keycloak, see the Dev Services for Keycloak section of the "OpenID Connect (OIDC) Bearer token authentication" guide.

References

Related content

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