[keycloak-user] access_token always contains JWT

[Scott Rossillo]

Opaque access tokens are an interesting idea for security reasons. I’ve heard them referred to as "by reference" access tokens because the actual JWT access token has to be stored somewhere. The OpenID spec doesn’t address this but it’s a solid idea for access tokens exposed to external applications, which do not need to be concerned with, or possibly shouldn’t be privy to the information inside the token.

There’s another option that may be more manageable. That is to offer a per client option of encrypting the access token, known as JWE, or JSON Web Encryption[0]. The basic idea is that the signed token is then encrypted with a symmetrical key. This key would probably be a realm level key. Another benefit or JWE is the access token payload is compressed, making the access token shorter.

Is this something we would be interested in adding support for?

[0]: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-jose-json-web-encryption-40

Scott Rossillo
Smartling | Senior Software Engineer
srossillo at smartling.com

> On Feb 5, 2016, at 9:17 AM, manfred.duchrow at caprica.biz wrote:
> 
> Yes, that's true (even for some open source software too).
> So am I supposed to put this JWT access token into the Authorization request header as Bearer value to authorize a request?
> The access token I got from Keycloak is over 5000 characters long!
> 
> 
> On 05.02.2016 13:47, Raghuram Prabhala wrote:
>> Access token is implementation specific. Some commercial software have the concept of "reference tokens" which are nothing but random strings indicated below. The clients have to query back the Authorization server to get a validated JWT token
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> From: Stian Thorgersen <sthorger at redhat.com> <mailto:sthorger at redhat.com>
>> To: manfred.duchrow at caprica.biz <mailto:manfred.duchrow at caprica.biz> 
>> Cc: keycloak-user <keycloak-user at lists.jboss.org> <mailto:keycloak-user at lists.jboss.org>
>> Sent: Friday, February 5, 2016 7:10 AM
>> Subject: Re: [keycloak-user] access_token always contains JWT
>> 
>> There's no such thing as a "simple token". Tokens are always a signed JWT.
>> 
>> On 5 February 2016 at 11:17, < <mailto:manfred.duchrow at caprica.biz>manfred.duchrow at caprica.biz <mailto:manfred.duchrow at caprica.biz>> wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I am trying to retrieve an access token from a Keycloak (1.8.0.Final)
>> service account by
>> POST /auth/realms/myrealm/protocol/openid-connect/token
>> with grant_type=client_credentials.
>> 
>> The result contains a signed JWT as value of field "access_token" rather
>> than a simple token
>> as described in chapter 18 (Service Accounts) of the user guide.
>> 
>> So what I expect (need) is a response like this:
>> 
>> {
>>     "access_token":"2YotnFZFEjr1zCsicMWpAA",
>>     "token_type":"bearer",
>>     "expires_in":60,
>>     "refresh_token":"tGzv3JOkF0XG5Qx2TlKWIA",
>>     "refresh_expires_in":600,
>>     "id_token":"tGzv3JOkF0XG5Qx2TlKWIA",
>>     "not-before-policy":0,
>>     "session-state":"234234-234234-234234"
>> }
>> 
>> Is there a way to configure the account or the realm to return a simple
>> token
>> in "access_token" (and "refresh_token") rather than a JWT?
>> 
>> Cheers,
>>   Manfred
>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
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