Configuring SSO for Argo CD using Keycloak | Access control and user management

Prerequisites
Configuring a new client in Keycloak
Logging in to Keycloak
Uninstalling Keycloak

After the Red Hat OpenShift GitOps Operator is installed, Argo CD automatically creates a user with admin permissions. To manage multiple users, cluster administrators can use Argo CD to configure Single Sign-On (SSO).

Prerequisites

Red Hat SSO is installed on the cluster.
Red Hat OpenShift GitOps Operator is installed on the cluster.
Argo CD is installed on the cluster.

Configuring a new client in Keycloak

Dex is installed by default for all the Argo CD instances created by the Operator. However, you can delete the Dex configuration and add Keycloak instead to log in to Argo CD using your OpenShift credentials. Keycloak acts as an identity broker between Argo CD and OpenShift.

Procedure

To configure Keycloak, follow these steps:

Delete the Dex configuration by removing the .spec.sso.dex parameter from the Argo CD custom resource (CR), and save the CR:

dex:
    openShiftOAuth: true
    resources:
      limits:
        cpu:
        memory:
      requests:
        cpu:
        memory:

Set the value of the provider parameter to keycloak in the Argo CD CR.

Configure Keycloak by performing one of the following steps:

For a secure connection, set the value of the rootCA parameter as shown in the following example:
```
apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: ArgoCD
metadata:
  name: example-argocd
  labels:
    example: basic
spec:
  sso:
    provider: keycloak
    keycloak:
      rootCA: "<PEM-encoded-root-certificate>" (1)
  server:
    route:
      enabled: true
```
1 A custom certificate used to verify the Keycloak’s TLS certificate.

The Operator reconciles changes in the .spec.keycloak.rootCA parameter and updates the oidc.config parameter with the PEM encoded root certificate in the argocd-cm configuration map.

For an insecure connection, leave the value of the rootCA parameter empty and use the oidc.tls.insecure.skip.verify parameter as shown below:

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: ArgoCD
metadata:
  name: example-argocd
  labels:
    example: basic
spec:
  extraConfig:
    oidc.tls.insecure.skip.verify: "true"
  sso:
    provider: keycloak
    keycloak:
      rootCA: ""

The Keycloak instance takes 2-3 minutes to install and run.

Logging in to Keycloak

Prerequisites

The default configuration of Dex is removed.
Your Argo CD CR must be configured to use the Keycloak SSO provider.

Procedure

Get the Keycloak route URL for login:

$ oc -n argocd get route keycloak

NAME        HOST/PORT                                                        PATH   SERVICES   PORT    TERMINATION   WILDCARD
keycloak    keycloak-default.apps.ci-ln-******.origin-ci-int-aws.dev.**.com         keycloak   <all>    reencrypt     None

Get the Keycloak pod name that stores the user name and password as environment variables:

$ oc -n argocd get pods

NAME                      READY   STATUS           RESTARTS   AGE
keycloak-1-2sjcl           1/1    Running            0        45m

Get the Keycloak user name:

$ oc -n argocd exec keycloak-1-2sjcl -- "env" | grep SSO_ADMIN_USERNAME

SSO_ADMIN_USERNAME=Cqid54Ih

Get the Keycloak password:

$ oc -n argocd exec keycloak-1-2sjcl -- "env" | grep SSO_ADMIN_PASSWORD

SSO_ADMIN_PASSWORD=GVXxHifH

On the login page, click LOG IN VIA KEYCLOAK.

You only see the option LOGIN VIA KEYCLOAK after the Keycloak instance is ready.
Click Login with OpenShift.

Login using kubeadmin is not supported.
Enter the OpenShift credentials to log in.
Optional: By default, any user logged in to Argo CD has read-only access. You can manage the user level access by updating the argocd-rbac-cm config map:
```
policy.csv:
<name>, <email>, role:admin
```

Uninstalling Keycloak

You can delete the Keycloak resources and their relevant configurations by removing the SSO field from the Argo CD Custom Resource (CR) file. After you remove the SSO field, the values in the file look similar to the following:

  apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
  kind: ArgoCD
  metadata:
    name: example-argocd
    labels:
      example: basic
  spec:
    server:
      route:
       enabled: true

A Keycloak application created by using this method is currently not persistent. Additional configurations created in the Argo CD Keycloak realm are deleted when the server restarts.