[keycloak-dev] Authentication flows - follow-up tasks and usability improvements

Johannes Knutsen johannes at kodet.no
Mon Nov 18 04:16:07 EST 2019 

One specific use-case is identity verification of users using passport
or other types of identity papers. Such a process is typically a
default required action which is required before the user is allowed
to login. But there are also cases where a user must be identified at
a later point of time. This could be triggered by some external system
which would add the required action to the user entity in Keycloak.
For example an external fraud system could flag the user as a suspect
and add the required action to the user. Scheduling of required action
would also be an interesting model, where you could configure Keycloak
to run a required action every x days.

The process of identification is typically a complete flow which could
involve several required steps and must be configurable. The current
required actions does not seem to have any way of adding configuration
properties? And it would be nice if we could model this flow as a flow
in Keycloak the same way we model authentication and registration
browser flow.
Currently, the best way we have found is to create a custom
authenticator which is added to registration, password reset, and
authentication flows. But this requires us to configure the
authenticators multiple times with the possibility of inconsistencies
between the configuration.

Another example is the current required action "UpdateProfile", which
does all the verification logic itself. But instead, the UpdateProfile
action could have been an UpateProfile flow which defined several
required or alternative actions which defined the process of
UpdateProfile. The required action would then just point to that flow.

Does this make sense?

- Johannes


On Sun, Nov 17, 2019 at 9:25 PM Marek Posolda <mposolda at redhat.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks for the feedback. But I am not 100% sure I understand your use-case.
>
> If I understand correctly, at some point, you want the user to do
> something  - for example confirm his contact details. Is this something,
> which administrator should specify (EG. administrator will need to add
> requiredAction to the user in admin console) or is it something
> requested by some applications?
>
> Maybe AIA and step-up authentication is solution for your use-case, but
> will be good to clarify exactly how your ideal use-case looks like.
>
> Thanks,
> Marek
>
> On 15. 11. 19 21:24, Johannes Knutsen wrote:
> > Sorry if you find this a little off topic, but I found this discussion
> > interesting.
> > Regarding RequiredActions, we have some use cases where we would like
> > to build custom required flows. For example for user identification
> > (think scanning of passports), regular confirmation of contact details
> > and so on.
> >  From our point of view, a required action where you could specify a
> > custom authentication flow the same way you select a flow for IdP
> > First/Post login flow, would be really nice. This way you could mostly
> > reuse existing logic and flexibility.
> >
> > Do you have any thoughts on how much changes this would require? Do
> > you have other more specific thoughts on how required actions could be
> > more flexible. Currently, I find them a little useless since they are
> > not configurable as regular authenticators.
> >
> > Johannes
> >
> > On Thu, Nov 14, 2019 at 11:27 AM Marek Posolda <mposolda at redhat.com> wrote:
> >> On 13. 11. 19 12:52, Stian Thorgersen wrote:
> >>>
> >>> On Tue, 12 Nov 2019 at 22:00, Marek Posolda <mposolda at redhat.com
> >>> <mailto:mposolda at redhat.com>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>      Based on the discussion within Keycloak team and with CloudTrust team
> >>>      and also based on the other facts, there are still quite a few
> >>>      follow-up
> >>>      tasks regarding usability and further improvements. It will be
> >>>      good to
> >>>      clarify the priorities of the follow-up tasks and also how exactly to
> >>>      address them. Regarding usability, it will be nice to receive
> >>>      feedback,
> >>>      so we're on the same page how screens should look like.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>      1) Improvement for end-user during authentication in regards to
> >>>      select
> >>>      alternative credential for authentication. This is something,
> >>>      which we
> >>>      discussed within the Keycloak team. The idea is to provide users the
> >>>      same/similar screens like Google does. We are a bit more
> >>>      constrained as
> >>>      Google doesn't allow administrators to have custom authentication
> >>>      flows
> >>>      and hence doesn't need to care too much about various corner
> >>>      cases. So
> >>>      not sure if we can achieve same usability for all the possible
> >>>      authentication flow configurations. But we probably have a space for
> >>>      improvement here.
> >>>
> >>>      I've created google docs
> >>>      https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/13PpcT26WPTC7v34hS6rj8U63xyZx4lZrPdeHF7qLkdU/edit?usp=sharing
> >>>
> >>>      with some example scenarios how could authentication of end user
> >>>      looks
> >>>      like for particular authentication flow configuration and for
> >>>      particular
> >>>      set of credentials available to target user. Comments should be
> >>>      allowed
> >>>      to anyone, so feel free to comment here or in the docs. Also if
> >>>      you have
> >>>      idea for some more use-cases to cover, feel free to write here.
> >>>
> >>>      IMO this looks like quite a priority as it affects end-users
> >>>      usability
> >>>      and hence will be nice to have this before February?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Added some comments, but would be good to go through this in person.
> >>> Can we have a chat sometime early next week?
> >> Sure, I will try to schedule something. Replied to some of your comments.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>      2) More flexibility around conditional authenticators
> >>>
> >>>      Some basic ideas, which we discussed within Keycloak team around
> >>>      conditional authenticators are:
> >>>      - Ability that each condition is able to "vote" rather than have
> >>>      requirements on conditional executions. It could be something
> >>>      similar to
> >>>      authorization policies available in Keycloak authorization services.
> >>>
> >>>      - Ability to compound conditions based on "AND" / "OR" logical
> >>>      conditions. For example allow easily to configure that particular
> >>>      subflow will be triggered if (condition1 == true || (condition2 ==
> >>>      true
> >>>      && condition3 == true)
> >>>
> >>>      - Ability to configure conditions. For example ability to have
> >>>      positive/negative logic for RoleCondition similarly like
> >>>      RolePolicy in
> >>>      authorization services has.
> >>>
> >>>      - Ability to integrate with the 3rd party engine for adaptive
> >>>      authentication
> >>>
> >>>      - Ability for administrators to clearly see how conditions are
> >>>      evaluated. Ideally have same/similar level of flexibility like
> >>>      Authorization policies have
> >>>
> >>>      I can try to do some more concrete proposal with example of screens,
> >>>      hopefully later this week. If anyone wants to start on some proposal
> >>>      around this before, feel free to go. IMO this is something, which
> >>>      doesn't have so big priority like (1) as it doesn't affect end users.
> >>>      The question is, whether to postpone improvements around
> >>>      conditions to
> >>>      later next year when we start on step-up authentication (which will
> >>>      require good flexibility around conditions and hence should help to
> >>>      naturally address this)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> I found the ability to configure requirement on a condition strange
> >>> and confusing. Perhaps we should enable/disable conditions for now,
> >>> then consider something more powerful next year. We can chat about
> >>> this as well on GMeet next week.
> >> Yes, so probably have just something like ENABLED/DISABLED on the
> >> conditions for now? Or don't have any checkbox/switch and automatically
> >> assume that condition, which is in the authentication flow is enabled.
> >> Then admin can remove the condition if he wants to "disable" it. I
> >> probably vote for that option.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>      3) Usability improvements in the admin console in the "Authentication
> >>>      flows" screen. The plan is to rewrite admin console in the future and
> >>>      improve on various screens, however until that is done, we can
> >>>      probably
> >>>      improve usability a bit even in the current admin console to make the
> >>>      things slightly more friendly for the administrators. I consider
> >>>      those
> >>>      things a low hanging fruits in comparison to (2) and hence hopefully
> >>>      doable before February.
> >>>
> >>>      https://issues.jboss.org/browse/KEYCLOAK-12013 Hide the subflows
> >>>      if the
> >>>      parent flow is disabled
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> +1
> >> Ok
> >>
> >> Question is, how exactly to hide the authenticators of disabled subflow,
> >> so that UI is nice and clear for the administrators... IMO it will be
> >> nice if it is still somehow visible that there are some hidden
> >> authenticators in the disabled subflow. Maybe they can be somehow
> >> collapsed and should be some tooltip or something, that those
> >> authenticators are disabled.
> >>
> >>>      https://issues.jboss.org/browse/KEYCLOAK-11968 Ensure that
> >>>      REQUIRED and
> >>>      ALTERNATIVE executions are not mixed at same level. ALTERNATIVE
> >>>      executions are defacto ignored/disabled when they are used
> >>>      together with
> >>>      REQUIRED executions, hence it will be nice if admin is aware of
> >>>      that and
> >>>      won't have possibility to configure ALTERNATIVE at same level as
> >>>      REQUIRED (or at least is WARNED somehow that this configuration
> >>>      doesn't
> >>>      makes sense and ALTERNATIVES will be ignored).
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Need to see how it behaves after the updates, but I would think being
> >>> able to set requirement on an authenticator within a sub-flow where
> >>> they are all alternatives doesn't make sense.
> >> Ok
> >>
> >> The question is again, how to do that in the UI. I can try to do some
> >> screenshots / HTML templates and maybe look at some Patternfly
> >> components regarding this.
> >>
> >>>      https://issues.jboss.org/browse/KEYCLOAK-11824 When authentication
> >>>      execution is added, we should make sure that some REQUIREMENT is
> >>>      selected by default
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> I would focus on usability improvements on changing the default flows
> >>> for now, then we can polish custom flows later.
> >>>
> >>> I was actually thinking that the default flows should not use the flow
> >>> UI at all, but rather some more high-level options.
> >> I am not 100% sure if having 2 different UI is good? What you describe
> >> below can be configured with the current authentication flow UI.
> >>
> >> I can see that having "simple" UI, which will just allow enable 1st
> >> factor and 2nd factor authenticators have some advantages, but it
> >> probably have some side-effects too. More work for us, more potential
> >> for bugs. It may be also less clear for administrators how to configure
> >> custom authentication flow as they won't see what happens during the
> >> default flow and hence they can't "inspire" from it.
> >>
> >>> Just to illustrate the idea (not sensible options):
> >>>
> >>> Identity first login:  [ON]
> >>>
> >>> Delegated
> >>> -------------
> >>> Cookie: [ON]
> >>> Kerberos: [configure]
> >>> IdP redirect: [configure]
> >>>
> >>> First-factor
> >>> --------------
> >>> Password: [ON]
> >>> WebAuthn: [ON]
> >>>
> >>> Second-factor
> >>> ------------------
> >>> OTP: [ON]
> >>> WebAuthn: [ON]
> >>> Backup Codes: [ON]
> >> Few points regarding this:
> >>
> >> - Right now, the default login form in the browser flow is still
> >> "Username / password" form. The multi-factor prototype didn't change
> >> this default behaviour. Should we change the default form to be
> >> username-only form, so that next form can be adjusted based on which
> >> credentials the particular user has? Basically have something like
> >> Google? The side-effect is, that having UsernameForm as default allows
> >> "username enumeration", but that IMO is not big issue for most of the
> >> deployments.
> >>
> >> - I think there will be usually different requirements for the
> >> "First-factor WebAuthn" and "second-factor WebAuthn" . For example
> >> "First-factor WebAuthn" may require WebAuthn authenticator with
> >> "UserRequirement: REQUIRED" when the second-factor just
> >> "UserRequirement: PRESENT" . However we still have this limitation that
> >> there is single WebAuthn configuration (WebAuthn policy) per whole
> >> realm. Same for OTP. So I think we may need to address this first.
> >> Perhaps we can have a way, so that administrator can configure multiple
> >> "Credential configuration" instances of same credential type in the
> >> realm. Then he can link the particular "credential configuration" with
> >> the Authenticator in the flow. So that the "First-factor WebAuthn"
> >> authenticator has the configuration with the UserRequirement: REQUIRED"
> >> and the second-factor with PRESENT.
> >>
> >> I think this can be doable before February, we just need to agree on
> >> priorities.
> >>
> >> - We probably need some more flexibility regarding RequiredActions.
> >> Basically have a possibility to have required action like "Register 2nd
> >> factor credential" . So user will be required to register the
> >> credential, but he should be able to choose which credential he
> >> registers. IMO this is pretty complex thing, which may require separate
> >> design documents. I have some doubts we can do it before February...
> >>
> >>>      https://issues.jboss.org/browse/KEYCLOAK-11969 Hide the conditional
> >>>      authenticator if it is configured outside of conditional flow.
> >>>      This JIRA
> >>>      is related to the conditional executions and hence I am not sure
> >>>      whether
> >>>      to address it together with other improvements related to conditional
> >>>      authenticators. However it is low hanging fruit in comparison to
> >>>      (2), so
> >>>      probably doable.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> +1 Would also be good to make sure Conditions look different to
> >>> Authenticators
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>      4) Other usability improvements. Similarly like (3), those are low
> >>>      hanging fruits and likely doable before February.
> >>>
> >>>      https://issues.jboss.org/browse/KEYCLOAK-12011 Remove cancel
> >>>      button from
> >>>      OTP form. IMO it will be better for usability if "Cancel" button is
> >>>      removed from the OTP form. Form already has the "Back" button, which
> >>>      provides more flexiblity. This is a bit related to the topic (1).
> >>>      WDYT?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> See my comment on the slides. I don't think we should have cancel or
> >>> back buttons. We should have:
> >>>
> >>> * Something that displays the select user, with an option to start
> >>> from scratch to select another user.
> >>> * "Try another way" to select a different credential for the
> >>> corresponding step.
> >> Ok, so cancel button should be removed. Regarding "Back" button, I
> >> replied on the slides.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>      https://issues.jboss.org/browse/KEYCLOAK-11922 Apply password history
> >>>      policy when password reset by admin. After applying multi-factor
> >>>      prototype, the password history policy is not applied when password
> >>>      reset by admin. It is applied just in case when it is reset by user
> >>>      himself. IMO this behaviour is fine and can even have better security
> >>>      (The case when admin randomly guess the password of some user can
> >>>      cause
> >>>      admin to be tempted to try this password against some other web
> >>>      application and authenticate as that user). Any preference on the
> >>>      behaviour?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> I don't think we should change the behavior from what it was previously.
> >> Ok
> >>
> >> Marek
> >>
> >>>      Thanks for the feedback,
> >>>      Marek
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>      _______________________________________________
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> >>>      keycloak-dev at lists.jboss.org <mailto:keycloak-dev at lists.jboss.org>
> >>>      https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/keycloak-dev
> >>>
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