Build Secure Applications with Keycloak: Seamless Authentication and Authorization for Modern Apps

Master Keycloak to build, secure, and scale modern applications, from login flows to fine-grained access control.

Key Features
A practical, hands-on guide to Keycloak for developers, architects, and DevOps engineers

Learn how to implement authentication and authorization using OpenID Connect (OIDC) and OAuth 2.0

Secure web, mobile, and API-based applications with SSO, MFA, and JWT tokens

Integrate social logins, identity federation, and fine-grained permissions for enterprise-grade security

Apply best practices for Keycloak deployment, scaling, and monitoring in production environments

Build Secure Applications with Keycloak is a comprehensive, up-to-date guide that teaches you how to secure modern applications using Keycloak, the open-source identity and access management (IAM) solution by Red Hat.

Through clear explanations, real-world configurations, and step-by-step examples, author Tristin Reed shows how to centralize authentication and authorization using industry standards such as OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, and SAML. You will learn how to set up SSO across multiple apps, implement multi-factor authentication (MFA), and protect REST APIs using JWT and bearer tokens.

As you progress, you will explore attribute-based and role-based access control (ABAC and RBAC), integrate Keycloak with existing user directories such as LDAP and Active Directory, and automate Keycloak using its Admin REST API. The book concludes with performance tuning, clustering, and event auditing to help you run Keycloak securely at enterprise scale.

By the end, you will be able to design and deploy a production-ready Keycloak environment capable of securing any application, from microservices to full-stack web apps.

What You Will Learn
Install, configure, and manage Keycloak 26.x (Quarkus-based)

Implement SSO, OAuth2, and OIDC for seamless user authentication

Configure MFA (TOTP, WebAuthn) and manage user sessions securely

Integrate Keycloak with React, Node.js, Spring Boot, or Python APIs

Create fine-grained authorization policies using RBAC and ABAC

Enable identity brokering and federation with Google, GitHub, and LDAP

Monitor, audit, and scale Keycloak in production and cloud environments

Who This Book Is For
This book is ideal for software developers, DevOps engineers, architects, and security professionals who want to secure applications without reinventing authentication from scratch.
Familiarity with basic web development and HTTP or JSON is helpful, but all concepts are explained step by step, making this a perfect resource for both beginners and experienced engineers.

Table of Contents
Introduction to Identity and Access Management

Installing and Configuring Keycloak

Authentication and SSO

Authorization and Access Control

Securing Web and API Applications

Token Management and OAuth2 Workflows

Multi-Factor Authentication and Federation

Event Logging, Auditing, and Monitoring

Best Practices for Security and Performance

Troubleshooting and Deployment Strategies