[keycloak-dev] The ultimate fate of master realm

[Dmitry Telegin]

Hi,

The idea of getting rid of master realm has been around for years [1] [2]. Just wanted to know, what's the current stance on this? Can we tell for sure that there still will be master realm in KC 5.0? Or can we tell the opposite?

Some background: we're working on a Keycloak extension (provider) that needs to operate a global (non-realm-based) writable config. So I'm choosing between the two options:
- store config keys as master realm attributes;
- introduce full-fledged configuration system based on Apache Commons Configuration, backed by its own DB table and Infinispan cache.

The latter is obviously more complex, however more powerful. I've posted a write-up on it about a year ago [3], but didn't get any feedback. I hope it could be reevaluated today; for Keycloak proper, there are several use cases like auto-update settings, admin email, periodic tasks etc.

The former, on the contrary, is much easier to implement, however there is a risk of having to rewrite everything from scratch should master realm bite the dust one day.

Cheers,
Dmitry Telegin
CTO, Acutus s.r.o.

[1] http://lists.jboss.org/pipermail/keycloak-dev/2015-December/006066.html
[2] https://issues.jboss.org/browse/KEYCLOAK-3443
[3] http://lists.jboss.org/pipermail/keycloak-dev/2017-December/010261.html