Single Sign-On (SSO)

Configure Keycloak SSO and log in to OpenServerless

This guide documents the public task command in the OpenServerless 0.9.0 checkout inspected on 13 October 2026 (task commit 7981be9). The provider subcommand is keycloak; this command configures an existing identity provider and an OIDC-capable Admin API. It does not install Keycloak or replace the Admin API image.

Use ops config sso, with no leading hyphen on config. The legacy embedded ops -config sso has separate implementation and is not the command documented here.

Before configuring SSO

  • Install the SSO tasks, an OIDC-capable Admin API, and a CLI with the corresponding login support. Updating only one component is insufficient.
  • Select the intended Kubernetes context and OPS configuration (OPS_HOME/OPS_ROOT where applicable). The command modifies that cluster and the local OPS configuration.
  • Have permissions to manage the dedicated ConfigMap/Secret and patch the selected Admin API StatefulSet.
  • Make the issuer and JWKS endpoints reachable from Admin API. For public-client device login, the CLI also contacts the identity provider.
  • Configure the identity provider to issue RS256 access tokens with the expected issuer, audience, username and access-membership claim. The required value is an exact string match, including any leading slash. See Groups and roles for using Keycloak role claims instead of groups.
  • Enable the device authorization grant for device login. If using password login, the identity provider must allow that grant (Keycloak Direct Access Grants); it does not provide the interactive browser/MFA experience.

The examples use HTTP for an isolated lab. Use HTTPS and trusted certificates for deployments carrying real credentials. Replace the sample host with an address reachable by the relevant clients and Pods; localhost inside an Admin API Pod is not the identity-provider host.

Command reference

ops config sso keycloak --enable --issuer-url=<issuer-url> --jwks-url=<jwks-url> (--audience=<audience>|--client-id=<client-id>) --required-group=<group> [--client-secret=<client-secret>] [--username-claim=<claim>] [--groups-claim=<claim>] [--namespace=<namespace>] [--configmap=<name>] [--secret=<name>] [--statefulset=<name>] [--container=<name>] [--no-rollout]
ops config sso show
ops config sso disable [--namespace=<namespace>] [--configmap=<name>] [--secret=<name>] [--statefulset=<name>] [--container=<name>] [--no-rollout]
OptionApplies toDefault / requirementEffect
--enablekeycloakRequiredExplicitly enables configuration
--issuer-urlkeycloakRequiredExpected token iss; exact match, including URL spelling/trailing slash
--jwks-urlkeycloakRequiredEndpoint containing public signing keys
--audiencekeycloakAlternative to --client-idExpected token aud; also used as client ID when no client ID is supplied
--client-idkeycloakAlternative to --audienceOIDC client ID; also used as expected audience
--required-groupkeycloakRequiredExact membership value required in the selected claim for access; does not grant OPS administrator permissions
--client-secretkeycloakOmitted: public clientStores OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET in the dedicated Kubernetes Secret; selects confidential-client mode locally
--username-claimkeycloakpreferred_usernameTop-level token claim used as the username
--groups-claimkeycloakgroupsTop-level token claim containing the required group; list or single string
--namespacekeycloak, disableopenserverlessKubernetes namespace containing the resources to manage
--configmapkeycloak, disableopenserverless-sso-configDedicated SSO ConfigMap name
--secretkeycloak, disableopenserverless-sso-secretDedicated SSO Secret name; this is a resource name, not the secret value
--statefulsetkeycloak, disableopenserverless-system-apiAdmin API StatefulSet to patch
--containerkeycloak, disableopenserverless-system-apiContainer within that StatefulSet
--no-rolloutkeycloak, disableFalseSuppresses explicit restart/wait on enable, or waiting on disable; does not prevent Kubernetes rolling out a changed Pod template

The public synopsis makes --audience and --client-id alternatives. Use one. The task consequently sets both OIDC_AUDIENCE and OIDC_CLIENT_ID to that value for this interface. A separate audience/client-ID pair is not a documented CLI combination.

Claim names are literal top-level keys; --groups-claim=realm_access.roles does not navigate a nested object. Configure an appropriate claim in the provider instead.

Groups and roles

The configuration command requires --required-group, but the token validator does not require that its value originate from a Keycloak group. It checks membership in the top-level claim selected by --groups-claim (default: groups), accepting a list of strings or a single string.

A Keycloak Group Membership mapper is one way to populate the default groups claim. It is not a general OIDC requirement or a recommendation against realm roles or client roles. To use roles, configure an appropriate Keycloak mapper to expose the permitted role names in a top-level access-token claim. For example:

{
  "ops_roles": ["openserverless-access"]
}

Add these options to the complete enable command:

--groups-claim=ops_roles --required-group=openserverless-access

The validator does not traverse nested objects. Neither --groups-claim=realm_access.roles nor --groups-claim=resource_access.openserverless.roles reads the nested Keycloak role arrays. Map the intended roles into a top-level claim instead, and verify that the access token contains the expected value.

This is an admission check for OPS SSO login, not a mapping of Keycloak roles to OPS permissions. A required value named admin does not itself grant an OPS administrator role.

At the backend level, an unset OIDC_REQUIRED_GROUP skips this membership check. However, the documented configuration command requires a non-empty --required-group and does not expose a mode that omits this check. Do not omit the option expecting the command to disable membership filtering.

Public-client example

Assume a lab realm ops, client ops-cli, a token audience containing ops-cli, and group claim containing /ops-users:

ops config sso keycloak --enable \
  --issuer-url=http://keycloak.lab:8080/realms/ops \
  --jwks-url=http://keycloak.lab:8080/realms/ops/protocol/openid-connect/certs \
  --client-id=ops-cli \
  --required-group=/ops-users

The JWKS endpoint must belong to that issuer. The command checks required values but does not prove the issuer, signing keys, grants or claim mapping are correct; verify an actual login afterwards.

Confidential-client example

Use the same full command and supply the client secret. In Bash, prompt instead of placing a literal secret in shell history:

read -r -s -p 'OIDC client secret: ' oidc_client_secret
printf '\n'
ops config sso keycloak --enable \
  --issuer-url=http://keycloak.lab:8080/realms/ops \
  --jwks-url=http://keycloak.lab:8080/realms/ops/protocol/openid-connect/certs \
  --client-id=ops-cli \
  --required-group=/ops-users \
  --client-secret="$oidc_client_secret"
unset oidc_client_secret

The task stores the value in Kubernetes and only stores a configured/not-configured flag locally. The value still passes as a process argument; run the command from an appropriate administrative environment and avoid shell tracing.

To change claims, add, for example, --username-claim=email --groups-claim=ops_groups to the full enable command, after arranging those claims in the provider.

Update an existing configuration

There is no separate update subcommand. Re-run the complete ops config sso keycloak --enable command with the desired values and the same Kubernetes resource names. You do not need to disable SSO or delete its resources first. The command reapplies the configuration and, by default, restarts the Admin API and waits for rollout.

For example, to change the required group to /ops-developers for a confidential client, run the following in Bash, replacing the lab settings with your existing issuer and client settings:

read -r -s -p 'OIDC client secret: ' oidc_client_secret
printf '\n'
env KUBECONFIG="$HOME/.ops/tmp/kubeconfig" \
  ops config sso keycloak --enable \
  --issuer-url=http://keycloak.lab:8080/realms/ops \
  --jwks-url=http://keycloak.lab:8080/realms/ops/protocol/openid-connect/certs \
  --client-id=ops-cli \
  --required-group=/ops-developers \
  --client-secret="$oidc_client_secret"
unset oidc_client_secret

Use the kubeconfig that successfully connects to your cluster. ops -info shows OPS_TMP; the default OPS-managed path is $HOME/.ops/tmp/kubeconfig. If using another location, substitute it above. Verify connectivity with kubectl --kubeconfig=/path/to/kubeconfig cluster-info before applying changes.

Pass the existing client secret again for a confidential client. Omitting --client-secret switches to public-client mode and deletes the managed SSO Secret; it does not retain the previous secret. Also repeat any non-default username/group claims, your chosen audience/client-ID option, and custom resource names. These settings are not a partial patch of the previous enable command. For a public client, intentionally omit the secret.

After rollout, check ops config sso show and test an actual login with the new membership requirement. show reports local settings, not live-cluster verification. If using --no-rollout, follow the restart instructions below before expecting existing Pods to use the new values.

Alternate Kubernetes resource names

Append these options to a complete enable command when the workload uses different names:

--namespace=ops-lab
--configmap=ops-lab-sso-config
--secret=ops-lab-sso-secret
--statefulset=ops-lab-system-api
--container=system-api

These select the resources patched by this task; they do not reconfigure the Admin API’s internal provisioning namespace or CRD API group. Verify those separately before deploying OPS outside its standard namespace.

Choose dedicated ConfigMap and Secret names. The task owns them and deletes them on disable. If changing names, clean up the old managed configuration explicitly first: selecting new names does not garbage-collect previous resources and references. The implementation can fall back to saved local resource names, but explicitly supplying custom names avoids ambiguity from CLI defaults and different workstations.

What enable changes

  1. Applies the dedicated ConfigMap with OIDC configuration and the provisioning defaults below.
  2. Applies the dedicated Secret if --client-secret is supplied; otherwise deletes that Secret if present.
  3. Adds exact, prefix-free envFrom references to the selected container.
  4. Saves non-secret SSO settings locally, including SSO_ENABLED=true, provider, client mode and resource names.
  5. Unless --no-rollout is used, restarts the StatefulSet and waits up to 180 seconds for rollout.

Re-running enable requires the complete required options. In particular, omitting --client-secret changes to public mode and removes the managed Secret; it does not preserve the previous secret. Use the complete command to rotate a client secret.

A ConfigMap-only update does not change an existing process’s environment. With --no-rollout, arrange a later restart if the Pod template did not change:

kubectl -n openserverless rollout restart statefulset/openserverless-system-api
kubectl -n openserverless rollout status statefulset/openserverless-system-api --timeout=180s

Provisioning defaults written by the task

These are generated settings, not additional command-line options:

SettingValue
SSO_AUTOPROVISION_ON_LOGINtrue
SSO_AUTOPROVISION_TIMEOUT_SECONDS120
SSO_AUTOPROVISION_POLL_SECONDS2
SSO_AUTOPROVISION_DEFAULT_SERVICESall
SSO_NAMESPACE_PRESERVE_VALIDtrue
SSO_NAMESPACE_HASH_LENGTH8
SSO_NAMESPACE_MAX_LENGTH61

These configure login-triggered provisioning and username-to-namespace mapping. Every enable invocation writes these values again. The command exposes no --autoprovision, --timeout or --default-services override. A successful IdP login can still fail OPS login if provisioning fails or exceeds its timeout.

Inspect and test

ops config sso show
kubectl -n openserverless get configmap openserverless-sso-config -o yaml
kubectl -n openserverless get secret openserverless-sso-secret
kubectl -n openserverless rollout status statefulset/openserverless-system-api --timeout=180s

show prints local SSO_* settings; it does not read the live cluster or validate login. A missing Secret is expected for public mode. Do not export Secret contents into support logs.

On the configured client, use device login:

OPS_APIHOST=http://miniops.me ops -login

Confidential mode delegates device authorization to Admin API; public mode uses the CLI’s direct device flow. Follow the displayed verification URL/code. On a headless client, add OPS_SSO_DISABLE_BROWSER=true to avoid opening a browser automatically.

For a provider configured to allow password grant:

OPS_APIHOST=http://miniops.me ops -login --sso-flow password --sso-username alice

The CLI prompts for the password unless OPS_PASSWORD is supplied. OPS_SSO_LOGIN_FLOW=password and OPS_SSO_USERNAME are the corresponding environment controls. These are login settings, not ops config sso flags.

For an application workspace, use ops ide login with its usual OPS API host and login profile. To select password flow through that task, use OPS_SSO_LOGIN_FLOW=password ops ide login. Keep provider identity and requested OPS namespace distinct when they differ. A positional namespace on backend-managed device login requests an explicit workspace binding; omit it when the server should resolve the user’s namespace.

On a different workstation, configure its CLI for SSO as well: server-side configuration does not copy local SSO_* settings to other clients. Do not run the administrative configuration command from every developer machine merely to select a login mode, and never distribute the confidential client secret to developers.

Disable

ops config sso disable

For custom resources, specify the same names used on enable:

ops config sso disable \
  --namespace=ops-lab \
  --configmap=ops-lab-sso-config \
  --secret=ops-lab-sso-secret \
  --statefulset=ops-lab-system-api \
  --container=system-api

Disable removes the task’s exact envFrom references, deletes its dedicated ConfigMap/Secret, and removes its recognized local settings. Repeating disable is safe when the dedicated resources are already absent. It still requires the target StatefulSet/container to exist.

Other envFrom references, direct env entries, volumes and mounts are preserved. Therefore manually injected OIDC variables can remain active; inspect them if SSO still appears enabled. Disable does not delete the IdP, previously provisioned users, application data or revoke issued OPS API keys. By default it waits for rollout only if it changed the container references.

Troubleshooting

SymptomCheck
no command named sso foundActive OPS_ROOT lacks the SSO tasks; inspect ops -info
missing --enable or another required valueUse the complete keycloak --enable form
StatefulSet/container not foundKubernetes context and resource options
Login still uses legacy credentialsLocal SSO_ENABLED and the active OPS configuration
Invalid issuer or audienceExact iss and aud in the token and configured client/audience
Missing required groupExact membership value and top-level claim name; configure a group or role mapper to include it in the access token
Unsupported algorithmThis validator accepts RS256
Device authorization unavailableProvider device grant, endpoint reachability and client mode
Password grant rejectedProvider grant policy, identity-provider username/password and client configuration
Provisioning timeoutAdmin API/operator logs and WhiskUser readiness; rollout success alone is not a login test
Settings appear unchanged after --no-rolloutRestart the selected StatefulSet after ConfigMap-only changes

Implementation references