[keycloak-dev] Automatically login user to application when logged into realm

Thu Oct 24 08:33:16 EDT 2013

There are different types of applications out there that have different needs. Gmail is a perfect example when you can immediately redirect users to the login form if they are not already logged in. This is because there is nothing sensible you can do at gmail.com without being logged in.

Let's look at amazon.com. If you go to http://amazon.com/ you are allowed to browse items and even add items to the basket without being logged in. If you are logged in the same page will also display recommendations and your login name, among other things. In this case you do want to automatically log in users when they visit the front-page, but you clearly do not want to show a login form for users that are not. A lot of pages are visible to both anonymous users and logged-in users.

In cases where you have a single page that changes depending on whether or not the user is logged in or not, you will not be able to achieve this without something like the prompt=none feature.

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Bill Burke" <bburke at redhat.com>
> To: "Stian Thorgersen" <stian at redhat.com>
> Cc: keycloak-dev at lists.jboss.org
> Sent: Thursday, 24 October, 2013 1:13:40 PM
> Subject: Re: [keycloak-dev] Automatically login user to application when logged into realm
> 
> Not to drag this on, but take a look at how google does it.
> 
> If you are not logged in, and you go to gmail.com, you are redirected
> immediately to accounts.google.com and you must log in there.  After you
> login you are redirected back to gmail.com.
> 
> If you leave gmail.com and visit another website, then come back to
> gmail.com, it does an immediate redirect to accounts.google.com which
> then immediately redirects you back to gmail.
> 
> So, I feel better.  I'm not so old school... :). Google works pretty
> much the same way the keycloak demo works.  There is one difference
> though that I i'm not sure if we should follow:  I'm guessing that to
> implement single sign off, Google will always redirect to
> accounts.google.com to check to see if you're logged in when you visit a
> google page.
> 
> 
> On 10/24/2013 5:17 AM, Stian Thorgersen wrote:
> > No worries, it's one of those things that happens with trying to explain
> > something over email/IRC.
> >
> > I think it should be an optional feature support by all adapters. For the
> > AS7 adapter I was thinking you'd specify it in 'resteasy-oauth.json'
> > ({..., 'auto-login' : true }?). If it's enabled and the first request is
> > to an unsecured resource it would redirect to 'auth/login?prompt=none'.
> > I'm happy to add a proposal to the AS7 adapter if you'd like.
> >
> 
> I don't think this approach can work very well in old-school web apps,
> if at all.  For pure Servlet apps you're either accessing a secure area
> or you're not.  A URL can't be both secure and unsecure at the same
> time.  Plus, if you have any kind of latency, a full browser redirect
> just to check if you're logged in with the auth-server is going to be
> pretty ugly.
> 
> The application adapter *DOES* still need an amILoggedIn REST call.  By
> default it should just return:
> 
> {
>     "loggedIn" : true,
>     "user" : "wburke"
> }
> 
> If you set a flag in resteasy-oauth.json, it will also contain the
> access token
> 
> {
>     loggedIn : true,
>     "user" : "wburke",
>     "token" : "asdfasdfasdfqwerqwer"
> }
> 
> amILoggedIn would be authenticated by a http-only cookie.
> 
> 
> > ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: "Bill Burke" <bburke at redhat.com>
> >> To: "Stian Thorgersen" <stian at redhat.com>
> >> Cc: keycloak-dev at lists.jboss.org
> >> Sent: Wednesday, 23 October, 2013 10:01:41 PM
> >> Subject: Re: [keycloak-dev] Automatically login user to application when
> >> logged into realm
> >>
> >> I guess I see what you mean.  You want to be able to show a
> >> login/register links on the *application's* page and not just redirect
> >> immediately to the keycloak screens when you first visit the page.  I
> >> guess I'm thinking too old school Java EE app that would automatically
> >> bring you to the login screen if you access secured content.  I feel
> >> like a dinosaur sometimes.  Too bad I still have 20 year until I retire.
> >>
> >> Apologies for wasting your time.
> >>
> >> Gonna have to figure out how to support this scenario for a traditional
> >> web app too.
> >>
> >> On 10/23/2013 3:58 PM, Stian Thorgersen wrote:
> >>> Yes I read your response and yes I have played with your demo.
> >>>
> >>> Let's then revisit this with the demo in mind, and you can tell me where
> >>> I'm mistaken.
> >>>
> >>> I visit http://localhost:8080/customer-portal/. The urls '/admins/*'
> >>> require the admin role and '/customers/*' requires the user role. If I
> >>> click on a link taking me to any of these pages the adapter redirects me
> >>> to the auth-server. In this case it works, as if I try to visit a private
> >>> url I should be presented with a login form if I'm not already logged in.
> >>> So there's no problem that the adapter automatically redirects me to the
> >>> auth-server.
> >>>
> >>> Now, imagine that this is an real application. Where the front-page
> >>> would,
> >>> if the user is not logged in, show "Login" and "Register" links, and
> >>> would
> >>> not show links to pages that an anonymous user is not allowed to access
> >>> (for example 'Customer Listing'). If a user is logged in the application
> >>> would not show 'Login' and 'Register' but instead show 'Hello User,
> >>> welcome back' and would include links to pages that particular user is
> >>> allowed to access (for example if the current user had the role user, but
> >>> not admin, only the 'Customer Listing', not the 'Customer Admin
> >>> Interface'
> >>> link, would be displayed).
> >>>
> >>> How would I be able to implement that behaviour with the current way
> >>> Keycloak works?
> >>>
> >>> ----- Original Message -----
> >>>> From: "Bill Burke" <bburke at redhat.com>
> >>>> To: "Stian Thorgersen" <stian at redhat.com>
> >>>> Cc: keycloak-dev at lists.jboss.org
> >>>> Sent: Wednesday, 23 October, 2013 8:18:32 PM
> >>>> Subject: Re: [keycloak-dev] Automatically login user to application when
> >>>> logged into realm
> >>>>
> >>>> Did you even read my response?  I completely mapped out the entire flow
> >>>> of how it works *now* in our demo and how it could work with a pure
> >>>> HTML5 app.  Go play with the demo to understand things better maybe?
> >>>>
> >>>> You talkd about this before:
> >>>>    > A company has an internal Keycloak server, they have a single realm
> >>>> with multiple internal applications. All applications are hosted on
> >>>> different servers. Let's imagine this company is called Red Hat. The
> >>>> user, let's call him Stian, first goes to the OrangeHRM to book some
> >>>> long overdue holiday. He's not currently logged in to the realm so is is
> >>>> shown an anonymous access screen instead with a login link. Stian
> >>>> presses login, fills in username and password and successfully logs in
> >>>> to the realm. Now Stian wants to go to docspace, again Stian has to
> >>>> press the Login link, but doesn't have to provide a username or
> >>>> password, but instead is simply redirected back to the application as a
> >>>> logged in user. Stian is actually a bit confused about this as he just
> >>>> logged in to an application without providing a username or password.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> What you describe is not how our demo works nor will it ever work that
> >>>> way.  You log in once to the auth server, any app you visit knows who
> >>>> you are.  There's no need to click a "login" button when you visit a new
> >>>> site.  HTML5 app would work exactly the same way as any of the WARs in
> >>>> the Keycloak demo code except all the redirect and cookie processing
> >>>> would happen within Javascript within the browser. There's just no need
> >>>> for your extra "no-forms" invocation!  The login check is already built
> >>>> into the protocol.
> >>>>
> >>>> http://www.tizag.com/javascriptT/javascriptredirect.php
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Bill Burke
> >>>> JBoss, a division of Red Hat
> >>>> http://bill.burkecentral.com
> >>>>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Bill Burke
> >> JBoss, a division of Red Hat
> >> http://bill.burkecentral.com
> >>
> 
> --
> Bill Burke
> JBoss, a division of Red Hat
> http://bill.burkecentral.com
> 