12:23 p.m.
On Jun 3, 2014, at 1:25 PM, Darran Lofthouse <darran.lofthouse(a)jboss.com> wrote:
> Both the auth server and admin console are served from the same
WAR. It
> should be possible to deploy this without using a WAR or servlets, but
> that is not planned for the initial WildFly integration. Because of
> this current limitation, the auth server and admin console will not be
> present in a domain controller.
This is going against the current design of AS7/WildFly exposing
management related operations over the management interface and leaving
the web container to be purely about a users deployments.
Sorry for my delayed reply. I hadn’t had a chance to read the full thread.
My understanding of the original and still current goal of key cloak is to be more of an
appliance, and also largely independent of WildFly.
From that perspective, I don’t think embedding Keycloak solely to be
in the same VM makes a lot of sense (more details as to why follow). It’s fine to have
KeyCloak running on a WildFly instance (either as a subsystem or a deployment), but to me
this seems to be a bit more of a black box to the user.
So a typical topology, based on the factors I am aware of would look like this:
+------+ Auth +----------+
| +----------------> |
| DC | | Keycloak |
+----+ +----+ | |
| +------+ | +----------+
| |
+---v--+ +--v---+
| | | |
| HC | | HC |
+-+ +-+ +-+ +-+
| +--+---+ | | +--+---+ |
| | | | | |
+v-+ +v-+ +-v+ +v-+ +v-+ +-v+
|S1| |S2| |S3| |S4| |S5| |S6|
+--+ +--+ +--+ +--+ +--+ +--+
Each box represents a different JVM running potentially on separate hardware.
So from the architecture the key element we need is for the DC (and standalone server) to
come pre bundled with a client that can talk to the Keycloak blackbox (whether it be
WildFly or fat jar or whatever). I assume this mostly amounts to OAUTH communication.
Now as to why I don’t think embedding as it is makes a lot of sense, is because it
wouldn’t really be a tightly integrated component, but rather two distinct systems duct
taped together. We would have:
1. Multiple distinct management consoles
2. Multiple distinct management APIs
3. Multiple distinct management protocols
4. Multiple distinct CLI/tools
There is of course ways to paper over this and shove them together but you end up with
leaky abstractions. Like lets say the CLI could issue REST operations against Keycloak as
well. Thats great but that means things like the compensating transaction model don’t let
you mix management changes with keycloak changes.
Another issue is that WildFly has some pretty strict backwards compatibility contracts
with regards to management that stem from EAP. Keycloak, at this stage of the process
might not want to put up with us requesting similar conservative governance. It might be
better for us to limit the API dependencies to best enable the project to continue to
evolve.
--
Jason T. Greene
WildFly Lead / JBoss EAP Platform Architect
JBoss, a division of Red Hat