[keycloak-user] Keycloak policy enforcer for bearer-only client

[Juan Camilo Vanegas]

Hi.

I am developing a Node.js web app that uses Keycloak as authentication
service. I already have two clients: public client for the web app
(app-web) and bearer-only for the API (app-api). On the app-api I use
resources, scopes, policies, and permissions to control the access.

To check the permissions, I am using the keycloak.enforcer(...) from the
keycloak-connectmodule (npm keycloak-connect
<https://www.npmjs.com/package/keycloak-connect>). When I try to check
permission, the server always returns 403 Access denied response. But if I
change app-api from bearer-only to confidential (keeping the same
keycloak.json configuration file), the client works fine and is capable to
check permissions.

This problem seems to be because a bearer-only client cannot obtain tokens
from the server (keycloak similar question
<http://keycloak-user.88327.x6.nabble.com/keycloak-user-can-we-use-authorization-with-bearer-only-td2123.html>
).

My question is: Is this a normal behavior of Keycloak? Why allow the
Authorization tab in bearer-only clients if you cannot use the
keycloak.enforcer? Am I missing some configuration?

Thanks for your help.


Stackoverflow question:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/56906984/keycloak-policy-enforcer-bearer-only-client