Simple Keycloak Guard for Laravel

This package helps you authenticate users on a Laravel API based on JWT tokens generated from Keycloak Server.

Requirements

✔️ I`m building an API with Laravel.

✔️ I will not use Laravel Passport for authentication, because Keycloak Server will do the job.

✔️ The frontend is a separated project.

✔️ The frontend users authenticate directly on Keycloak Server to obtain a JWT token. This process have nothing to do with the Laravel API.

✔️ The frontend keep the JWT token from Keycloak Server.

✔️ The frontend make requests to the Laravel API, with that token.

💔 If your app does not match requirements, probably you are looking for https://socialiteproviders.com/Keycloak or https://github.com/Vizir/laravel-keycloak-web-guard

The flow

1. The frontend user authenticates on Keycloak Server

2. The frontend user obtains a JWT token.

3. In another moment, the frontend user makes a request to some protected endpoint on a Laravel API, with that token.

4. The Laravel API (through Keycloak Guard) handle it.

   • Verify token signature.
   • Verify token structure.
   • Verify token expiration time.
   • Verify if my API allows resource access from token.

5. If everything is ok, then find the user on database and authenticate it on my API.

6. Optionally, the user can be created / updated in the API users database.

7. Return response

Install

Require the package

composer require robsontenorio/laravel-keycloak-guard

If you are using Lumen, register the provider in your boostrap app file bootstrap/app.php.
For facades, uncomment $app->withFacades(); in your boostrap app file bootstrap/app.php

$app->register(\KeycloakGuard\KeycloakGuardServiceProvider::class);

Example configuration (.env)

KEYCLOAK_REALM_PUBLIC_KEY=MIIBIj...         # Get it on Keycloak admin web console.
KEYCLOAK_LOAD_USER_FROM_DATABASE=false      # You can opt to not load user from database, and use that one provided from JWT token.
KEYCLOAK_APPEND_DECODED_TOKEN=true          # Append the token info to user object.
KEYCLOAK_ALLOWED_RESOURCES=my-api           # The JWT token must contain this resource `my-api`.
KEYCLOAK_LEEWAY=60                          # Optional, but solve some weird issues with timestamps from JWT token.

Auth Guard

Changes on config/auth.php

'defaults' => [
    'guard' => 'api',                 # <-- This
    'passwords' => 'users',
],    
'guards' => [
    'api' => [
        'driver' => 'keycloak',       # <-- This
        'provider' => 'users',
    ],
],

Routes

Just protect some endpoints on routes/api.php and you are done!

// public endpoints
Route::get('/hello', function () {
    return ':)';
});

// protected endpoints
Route::group(['middleware' => 'auth:api'], function () {
    Route::get('/protected-endpoint', 'SecretController@index');

    // more endpoints ...
});

Configuration

Keycloak Guard

⚠️ When editing .env make sure all strings are trimmed.

# Publish config file

php artisan vendor:publish  --provider="KeycloakGuard\KeycloakGuardServiceProvider"

✔️ realm_public_key

Required.

The Keycloak Server realm public key (string).

How to get realm public key? Click on "Realm Settings" > "Keys" > "Algorithm RS256 (or defined under token_encryption_algorithm configuration)" Line > "Public Key" Button

✔️ token_encryption_algorithm

Default is RS256.

The JWT token encryption algorithm used by Keycloak (string).

✔️ load_user_from_database

Required. Default is true.

If you do not have an users table you must disable this.

It fetchs user from database and fill values into authenticated user object. If enabled, it will work together with user_provider_credential and token_principal_attribute.

✔️ user_provider_custom_retrieve_method

Default is null.

If you have an users table and want it to be updated (creating or updating users) based on the token, you can inform a custom method on a custom UserProvider, that will be called instead retrieveByCredentials and will receive the complete decoded token as parameter, not just the credentials (as default). This will allow you to customize the way you want to interact with your database, before matching and delivering the authenticated user object, having all the information contained in the (valid) access token available. To read more about custom UserProviders, please check Laravel's documentation about.

If using this feature, obviously, values defined for user_provider_credential and token_principal_attribute will be ignored.

✔️ user_provider_credential

Required. Default is username.

The field from "users" table that contains the user unique identifier (eg. username, email, nickname). This will be confronted against token_principal_attribute attribute, while authenticating.

✔️ token_principal_attribute

Required. Default is preferred_username.

The property from JWT token that contains the user identifier. This will be confronted against user_provider_credential attribute, while authenticating.

✔️ append_decoded_token

Default is false.

Appends to the authenticated user the full decoded JWT token ($user->token). Useful if you need to know roles, groups and other user info holded by JWT token. Even choosing false, you can also get it using Auth::token(), see API section.

✔️ allowed_resources

Required.

Usually you API should handle one resource_access. But, if you handle multiples, just use a comma separated list of allowed resources accepted by API. This attribute will be confronted against resource_access attribute from JWT token, while authenticating.

✔️ ignore_resources_validation

Default is false.

Disables entirely resources validation. It will ignore allowed_resources configuration.

✔️ leeway

Default is 0.

You can add a leeway to account for when there is a clock skew times between the signing and verifying servers. If you are facing issues like "Cannot handle token prior to " try to set it 60 (seconds).

✔️ input_key

Default is null.

By default this package always will look at first for a Bearer token. Additionally, if this option is enabled, then it will try to get a token from this custom request param.

// keycloak.php
'input_key' => 'api_token'

// If there is no Bearer token on request it will use `api_token` request param
GET  $this->get("/foo/secret?api_token=xxxxx")
POST $this->post("/foo/secret", ["api_token" => "xxxxx"])

API

Simple Keycloak Guard implements Illuminate\Contracts\Auth\Guard. So, all Laravel default methods will be available.

Default Laravel methods

• check()
• guest()
• user()
• id()
• validate()
• setUser()

Keycloak Guard methods

Token

token() Returns full decoded JWT token from authenticated user.

$token = Auth::token()  // or Auth::user()->token()

Role

hasRole('some-resource', 'some-role') Check if authenticated user has a role on resource_access

// Example decoded payload

'resource_access' => [
  'myapp-backend' => [
      'roles' => [
        'myapp-backend-role1',
        'myapp-backend-role2'
      ]
  ],
  'myapp-frontend' => [
    'roles' => [
      'myapp-frontend-role1',
      'myapp-frontend-role2'
    ]
  ]
]

Auth::hasRole('myapp-backend', 'myapp-backend-role1') // true
Auth::hasRole('myapp-frontend', 'myapp-frontend-role1') // true
Auth::hasRole('myapp-backend', 'myapp-frontend-role1') // false

hasAnyRole('some-resource', ['some-role1', 'some-role2']) Check if the authenticated user has any of the roles in resource_access

Auth::hasAnyRole('myapp-backend', ['myapp-backend-role1', 'myapp-backend-role3']) // true
Auth::hasAnyRole('myapp-frontend', ['myapp-frontend-role1', 'myapp-frontend-role3']) // true
Auth::hasAnyRole('myapp-backend', ['myapp-frontend-role1', 'myapp-frontend-role2']) // false

Scope

Example decoded payload:

{
    "scope": "scope-a scope-b scope-c",
}

scopes() Get all user scopes

array:3 [
  0 => "scope-a"
  1 => "scope-b"
  2 => "scope-c"
]

hasScope('some-scope') Check if authenticated user has a scope

Auth::hasScope('scope-a') // true
Auth::hasScope('scope-d') // false

hasAnyScope(['scope-a', 'scope-c']) Check if the authenticated user has any of the scopes

Auth::hasAnyScope(['scope-a', 'scope-c']) // true
Auth::hasAnyScope(['scope-a', 'scope-d']) // true
Auth::hasAnyScope(['scope-f', 'scope-k']) // false

Acting as a Keycloak user in tests

As an equivalent feature like $this->actingAs($user) in Laravel, with this package you can use KeycloakGuard\ActingAsKeycloakUser trait in your test class and then use actingAsKeycloakUser() method to act as a user and somehow skip the Keycloak auth:

use KeycloakGuard\ActingAsKeycloakUser;

public test_a_protected_route()
{
    $this->actingAsKeycloakUser()
        ->getJson('/api/somewhere')
        ->assertOk();
}

If you are not using keycloak.load_user_from_database option, set keycloak.preferred_username with a valid preferred_username for tests.

You can also specify exact expectations for the token payload by passing the payload array in the second argument:

use KeycloakGuard\ActingAsKeycloakUser;

public test_a_protected_route()
{
    $this->actingAsKeycloakUser($user, [
        'aud' => 'account',
        'exp' => 1715926026,
        'iss' => 'https://localhost:8443/realms/master'
    ])->getJson('/api/somewhere')
      ->assertOk();
}

$user argument receives a string identifier or an Eloquent model, identifier of which is expected to be the property referred in user_provider_credential config. Whatever you pass in the payload will override default claims, which includes aud, iat, exp, iss, azp, resource_access and either sub or preferred_username, depending on token_principal_attribute config.

Alternatively, payload can be provided in a class property, so it can be reused across multiple tests:

use KeycloakGuard\ActingAsKeycloakUser;

protected $tokenPayload = [
    'aud' => 'account',
    'exp' => 1715926026,
    'iss' => 'https://localhost:8443/realms/master'
];

public test_a_protected_route()
{
    $payload = [
        'exp' => 1715914352
    ];
    $this->actingAsKeycloakUser($user, $payload)
        ->getJson('/api/somewhere')
        ->assertOk();
}

Priority is given to the claims in passed as an argument, so they will override ones in the class property. $user argument has the highest priority over the claim referred in token_principal_attribute config.

Contribute

You can run this project on VSCODE with Remote Container. Make sure you will use internal VSCODE terminal (inside running container).

composer install
composer test
composer test:coverage

Contact

Twitter @robsontenorio