[keycloak-dev] Adapter Versioning

[Stian Thorgersen]

On 12 April 2016 at 19:25, Lance Ball <lball at redhat.com> wrote:

> Hi all
>
> I've been emailing with Stian about versioning in the "Node.js adapter
> releases" thread, but as he pointed out, some of my concerns are broader
> than just Node.js and so I am broadening the conversation a bit.
>
> Background: I am working as part of a Node.js RHT "middleware" team to,
> among other things, contribute towards the development of Node.js modules
> for our existing JBoss technologies. As part of this, we're doing what we
> can for the Keycloak Node.js pieces.
>
> As it stands now, I understand that versioning of adapters must remain in
> lockstep with Keycloak core. I understand the motivation for this, but want
> to push back on this just a little bit, and open it up for discussion.
>
> I see a couple of scenarios where this is potentially problematic. I am
> using Node.js and NPM here, but I think the concerns should apply to any
> adapter that is part of an ecosystem outside of Java.
>
> 1) There is a security flaw in some 3rd party dependency of the adapter,
> discovered the day of a Keycloak core release. This renders the "latest"
> version of an adapter useless until a new Keycloak server is released. I
> understand that the release cadence is anticipated to be approximately
> every 6 weeks (which is laudable), but still that's > 1 month that users
> have to wait for a security fix.
>

Non-issue as we will push out a release for a critical security fix as soon
as possible. Having a single release makes it actually easier to do.


>
> 2) There is no change in the adapter between releases of Keycloak server.
> In this case, it's not necessarily a problem to release a new adapter
> version, but it seems noisy and pointless if the bits are exactly the same.
>

The plan is to have release notes that cover which adapters have changed
and which are required to upgrade (either because backwards compatibility
is broken with the server or due to a security fix)


>
> When we look at version numbers, they are typically MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH with
> possibly a pre-release suffix like -Alpha1. I would like to discuss the
> possibility for adapters to issue patch level releases independent of a
> server release. This would allow for MAJOR.MINOR versions to remain
> consistent so to communicate compatibility with a given Keycloak server
> version. But would provide flexibility for adapters to deal with both
> issues noted above.
>

> And just for the sake of argument, let's look at a hypothetical situation
> where Keycloak is baptized a Product, and the release cadence slows down
> significantly to every 12-18 months. What if a major security flaw is
> discovered in an adapter? Should this trigger a new release of Keycloak
> server itself? Would it not be better to allow the adapter to issue a patch
> level release instead?
>

It won't and Keycloak is already becoming a product. Release cadence is 6
weeks in community.


>
> If you've read this far - thanks! Looking forward to your thoughts.
>
> Lance
>
>
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