springboot-react-keycloak

The goal of this project is to secure movies-app using Keycloak(with PKCE). movies-app consists of two applications: one is a Spring Boot Rest API called movies-api and another is a React application called movies-ui.

Proof-of-Concepts & Articles

On ivangfr.github.io, I have compiled my Proof-of-Concepts (PoCs) and articles. You can easily search for the technology you are interested in by using the filter. Who knows, perhaps I have already implemented a PoC or written an article about what you are looking for.

Additional Readings

• [Medium] Implementing a Full Stack Web App using Spring-Boot and React
• [Medium] Using Keycloak to secure a Full Stack Web App implemented with Spring-Boot and React
• [Medium] Implementing and Securing a Simple Spring Boot REST API with Keycloak
• [Medium] Implementing and Securing a Simple Spring Boot UI (Thymeleaf + RBAC) with Keycloak
• [Medium] Implementing and Securing a Spring Boot GraphQL API with Keycloak
• [Medium] Setting Up OpenLDAP With Keycloak For User Federation
• [Medium] Integrating GitHub as a Social Identity Provider in Keycloak
• [Medium] Integrating Google as a Social Identity Provider in Keycloak
• [Medium] Building a Single Spring Boot App with Keycloak or Okta as IdP: Introduction

Project diagram

Applications

• movies-api

  Spring Boot Web Java backend application that exposes a REST API to manage movies. Its secured endpoints can just be accessed if an access token (JWT) issued by Keycloak is provided.

  movies-api stores its data in a Mongo database.

  movie-api has the following endpoints:

  Endpoint	Secured	Roles
  GET /api/userextras/me	Yes	MOVIES_ADMIN and MOVIES_USER
  POST /api/userextras/me -d {avatar}	Yes	MOVIES_ADMIN and MOVIES_USER
  GET /api/movies	No
  GET /api/movies/{imdbId}	No
  POST /api/movies -d {"imdb","title","director","year","poster"}	Yes	MOVIES_ADMIN
  DELETE /api/movies/{imdbId}	Yes	MOVIES_ADMIN
  POST /api/movies/{imdbId}/comments -d {"text"}	Yes	MOVIES_ADMIN and MOVIES_USER

• movies-ui

  React frontend application where users can see and comment movies and admins can manage movies. To access the application, user / admin must login using his/her username and password. Those credentials are managed by Keycloak. All the requests from movies-ui to secured endpoints in movies-api include an access token (JWT) that is generated when user / admin logs in.

  movies-ui uses Semantic UI React as CSS-styled framework.

Prerequisites

• Java 25 or higher;

• npm

• A containerization tool (e.g., Docker, Podman, etc.)

• jq

• OMDb API KEY

  To use the Wizard option to search and add a movie, we need to get an API KEY from OMDb API. To do this, access https://www.omdbapi.com/apikey.aspx and follow the steps provided by the website.

  Once we have the API KEY, create a file called .env.local in the springboot-react-keycloak/movies-ui folder with the following content:

  REACT_APP_OMDB_API_KEY=<your-api-key>
  

PKCE

As Keycloak supports PKCE (Proof Key for Code Exchange) since version 7.0.0, we are using it in this project.

Start Environment

In a terminal, navigate to the springboot-react-keycloak root folder and run:

./init-environment.sh

Initialize Keycloak

In a terminal and inside the springboot-react-keycloak root folder run:

./init-keycloak.sh

This script will:

• create company-services realm;
• disable the required action Verify Profile;
• create movies-app client;
• create the client role MOVIES_USER for the movies-app client;
• create the client role MOVIES_ADMIN for the movies-app client;
• create USERS group;
• create ADMINS group;
• add USERS group as realm default group;
• assign MOVIES_USER client role to USERS group;
• assign MOVIES_USER and MOVIES_ADMIN client roles to ADMINS group;
• create user user;
• assign USERS group to user;
• create admin user;
• assign ADMINS group to admin.

Running movies-app using Maven & Npm

• movies-api

  • Open a terminal and navigate to the springboot-react-keycloak/movies-api folder;

  • Run the following Maven command to start the application:

    ./mvnw clean spring-boot:run -Dspring-boot.run.jvmArguments="-Dserver.port=9080"
    

  • We can also configure Social Identity Providers such as, GitHub, Google, Facebook and Instagram. I've written two articles in Medium where I explain step-by-step how to integrate GitHub and Google.

• movies-ui

  • Open another terminal and navigate to the springboot-react-keycloak/movies-ui folder;

  • Run the command below if you are running the application for the first time:

    npm install
    

  • Run the npm command below to start the application:

    npm start
    

Applications URLs

Application	URL	Credentials
movie-api	http://localhost:9080/swagger-ui.html	Access Token
movie-ui	http://localhost:3000	admin/admin or user/user
Keycloak	http://localhost:8080	admin/admin

Demo

• The gif below shows an admin logging in and adding one movie using the wizard feature:

• The gif below shows a user logging in using his Github account; then he changes his avatar and comment on a movie:

Testing movies-api endpoints

We can manage movies by directly accessing movies-api endpoints using the Swagger website or curl. For the secured endpoints like POST /api/movies, PUT /api/movies/{id}, DELETE /api/movies/{id}, etc, we need to inform an access token issued by Keycloak.

Getting Access Token

• Open a terminal.

• Run the following commands to get the access token:

  ACCESS_TOKEN="$(curl -s -X POST \
    "http://localhost:8080/realms/company-services/protocol/openid-connect/token" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" \
    -d "username=admin" \
    -d "password=admin" \
    -d "grant_type=password" \
    -d "client_id=movies-app" | jq -r .access_token)"
  
  echo $ACCESS_TOKEN
  

  Note: In jwt.io, we can decode and verify the JWT access token.

Calling movies-api endpoints using curl

• Trying to add a movie without access token:

  curl -i -X POST "http://localhost:9080/api/movies" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d '{ "imdbId": "tt5580036", "title": "I, Tonya", "director": "Craig Gillespie", "year": 2017, "poster": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMjI5MDY1NjYzMl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNjIzNDAxNDM@._V1_SX300.jpg"}'
  

  It should return:

  HTTP/1.1 401
  

• Trying again to add a movie, now with access token (obtained at getting-access-token):

  curl -i -X POST "http://localhost:9080/api/movies" \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d '{ "imdbId": "tt5580036", "title": "I, Tonya", "director": "Craig Gillespie", "year": 2017, "poster": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMjI5MDY1NjYzMl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNjIzNDAxNDM@._V1_SX300.jpg"}'
  

  It should return:

  HTTP/1.1 201
  {
    "imdbId": "tt5580036",
    "title": "I, Tonya",
    "director": "Craig Gillespie",
    "year": "2017",
    "poster": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMjI5MDY1NjYzMl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNjIzNDAxNDM@._V1_SX300.jpg",
    "comments": []
  }
  

• Getting the list of movies. This endpoint does not require access token:

  curl -i http://localhost:9080/api/movies
  

  It should return:

  HTTP/1.1 200
  [
    {
      "imdbId": "tt5580036",
      "title": "I, Tonya",
      "director": "Craig Gillespie",
      "year": "2017",
      "poster": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMjI5MDY1NjYzMl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNjIzNDAxNDM@._V1_SX300.jpg",
      "comments": []
    }
  ]
  

Calling movies-api endpoints using Swagger

• Access movies-api Swagger website, http://localhost:9080/swagger-ui.html.

• Click Authorize button.

• In the form that opens, paste the access token (obtained at getting-access-token) in the Value field. Then, click Authorize and Close to finalize.

• Done! We can now access the secured endpoints.

Useful Commands

• MongoDB

  List all movies:

  docker exec -it mongodb mongosh moviesdb
  db.movies.find()
  

  Type exit to exit of MongoDB shell.

Shutdown

• To stop movies-api and movies-ui, go to the terminals where they are running and press Ctrl+C;

• To stop and remove docker containers, network and volumes, go to a terminal and, inside the springboot-react-keycloak root folder, run the command below:

  ./shutdown-environment.sh
  

How to upgrade movies-ui dependencies to latest version

• In a terminal, make sure you are in the springboot-react-keycloak/movies-ui folder;

• Run the following commands:

  npm upgrade
  npm i -g npm-check-updates
  ncu -u
  npm install