Installing Che on Minikube with Keycloak as the OIDC provider

You can create a single-node Kubernetes cluster with Minikube to deploy Che and configure it to use Keycloak as the OpenID Connect (OIDC) provider.

Single-node Kubernetes clusters are suited only for testing or development. Do NOT use such clusters to run Che for organizations or developer teams!

Prerequisites

Minikube stable release. See Installing Minikube.
helm: The package manager for Kubernetes. See: Installing Helm.
kubectl stable release. See Installing kubectl.
chectl. See Installing the chectl management tool.

Procedure

Start Minikube. Allocate at least 8GB of RAM and 4 CPU cores:

minikube start --addons=ingress --vm=true --memory=8192 --cpus=4

Install cert-manager

helm repo add jetstack https://charts.jetstack.io
helm repo update

helm install cert-manager jetstack/cert-manager \
  --wait \
  --create-namespace \
  --namespace cert-manager \
  --set installCRDs=true

Install Keycloak:

kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
  name: keycloak
---
apiVersion: cert-manager.io/v1
kind: Issuer
metadata:
  name: keycloak-selfsigned
  namespace: keycloak
  labels:
    app: keycloak
spec:
  selfSigned: {}
---
apiVersion: cert-manager.io/v1
kind: Certificate
metadata:
  name: keycloak-selfsigned
  namespace: keycloak
  labels:
    app: keycloak
spec:
  isCA: true
  commonName: keycloak-selfsigned-ca
  privateKey:
    algorithm: ECDSA
    size: 256
  issuerRef:
    name: keycloak-selfsigned
    kind: Issuer
    group: cert-manager.io
  secretName: ca.crt
---
apiVersion: cert-manager.io/v1
kind: Issuer
metadata:
  name: keycloak
  namespace: keycloak
  labels:
    app: keycloak
spec:
  ca:
    secretName: ca.crt
---
apiVersion: cert-manager.io/v1
kind: Certificate
metadata:
  name: keycloak
  namespace: keycloak
  labels:
    app: keycloak
spec:
  isCA: false
  commonName: keycloak
  dnsNames:
    - keycloak.$(minikube ip).nip.io
  privateKey:
    algorithm: RSA
    encoding: PKCS1
    size: 4096
  issuerRef:
    kind: Issuer
    name: keycloak
    group: cert-manager.io
  secretName: keycloak.tls
  subject:
    organizations:
      - Local Eclipse Che
  usages:
    - server auth
    - digital signature
    - key encipherment
    - key agreement
    - data encipherment
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: keycloak
  namespace: keycloak
  labels:
    app: keycloak
spec:
  ports:
  - name: http
    port: 8080
    targetPort: 8080
  selector:
    app: keycloak
  type: LoadBalancer
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: keycloak
  namespace: keycloak
  labels:
    app: keycloak
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: keycloak
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: keycloak
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: keycloak
        image: quay.io/keycloak/keycloak:18.0.2
        args: ["start-dev"]
        env:
        - name: KEYCLOAK_ADMIN
          value: "admin"
        - name: KEYCLOAK_ADMIN_PASSWORD
          value: "admin"
        - name: KC_PROXY
          value: "edge"
        ports:
        - name: http
          containerPort: 8080
        readinessProbe:
          httpGet:
            path: /realms/master
            port: 8080
---
apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: keycloak
  namespace: keycloak
  annotations:
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/proxy-connect-timeout: '3600'
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/proxy-read-timeout: '3600'
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/ssl-redirect: 'true'
spec:
  ingressClassName: nginx
  tls:
    - hosts:
        - keycloak.$(minikube ip).nip.io
      secretName: keycloak.tls
  rules:
  - host: keycloak.$(minikube ip).nip.io
    http:
      paths:
      - path: /
        pathType: Prefix
        backend:
          service:
            name: keycloak
            port:
              number: 8080
EOF

Save Keycloak CA certificate:

kubectl get secret ca.crt -o "jsonpath={.data['ca\.crt']}" -n keycloak | base64 -d > keycloak-ca.crt

Copy Keycloak CA certificate into Minikube:

minikube ssh sudo "mkdir -p /etc/ca-certificates" && \
minikube cp keycloak-ca.crt /etc/ca-certificates/keycloak-ca.crt

Configure Minikube to use Keycloak as the OIDC provider:

minikube start \
    --extra-config=apiserver.oidc-issuer-url=https://keycloak.$(minikube ip).nip.io/realms/che \
    --extra-config=apiserver.oidc-username-claim=email \
    --extra-config=apiserver.oidc-client-id=k8s-client \
    --extra-config=apiserver.oidc-ca-file=/etc/ca-certificates/keycloak-ca.crt

Wait until the Keycloak pod is ready:

kubectl wait --for=condition=ready pod -l app=keycloak -n keycloak --timeout=120s

Configure Keycloak to create the realm, client, and user:

You must do this each time you start the Minikube cluster.

kubectl exec deploy/keycloak -n keycloak -- bash -c \
    "/opt/keycloak/bin/kcadm.sh config credentials \
        --server http://localhost:8080 \
        --realm master \
        --user admin  \
        --password admin && \
    /opt/keycloak/bin/kcadm.sh create realms \
        -s realm='che' \
        -s displayName='che' \
        -s enabled=true \
        -s registrationAllowed=false \
        -s resetPasswordAllowed=true && \
    /opt/keycloak/bin/kcadm.sh create clients \
        -r 'che' \
        -s clientId=k8s-client \
        -s id=k8s-client \
        -s redirectUris='[\"*\"]' \
        -s directAccessGrantsEnabled=true \
        -s secret=eclipse-che && \
    /opt/keycloak/bin/kcadm.sh create users \
        -r 'che' \
        -s username=test \
        -s email=\"test@test.com\" \
        -s enabled=true \
        -s emailVerified=true &&  \
    /opt/keycloak/bin/kcadm.sh set-password \
        -r 'che' \
        --username test \
        --new-password test"

Copy Keycloak CA certificate into the eclipse-che namespace:

kubectl create namespace eclipse-che &&  \
kubectl create configmap keycloak-certs \
    --from-file=keycloak-ca.crt=keycloak-ca.crt \
    -n eclipse-che && \
kubectl label configmap keycloak-certs \
    app.kubernetes.io/part-of=che.eclipse.org \
    app.kubernetes.io/component=ca-bundle \
    -n eclipse-che

Prepare the CheCluster patch:

cat > che-patch.yaml << EOF
kind: CheCluster
apiVersion: org.eclipse.che/v2
spec:
  networking:
    auth:
      oAuthClientName: k8s-client
      oAuthSecret: eclipse-che
      identityProviderURL: "https://keycloak.$(minikube ip).nip.io/realms/che"
      gateway:
        oAuthProxy:
          cookieExpireSeconds: 300
  components:
    cheServer:
      extraProperties:
        CHE_OIDC_USERNAME__CLAIM: email
EOF

Create the Che instance with chectl:

chectl server:deploy --platform k8s --domain $(minikube ip).nip.io --che-operator-cr-patch-yaml che-patch.yaml --skip-cert-manager

Alternatively, use the Eclipse Che Helm Charts:

helm install che \
    --namespace eclipse-che \
    --set networking.domain=$(minikube ip).nip.io \
    --set networking.auth.oAuthSecret=eclipse-che \
    --set networking.auth.oAuthClientName=k8s-client \
    --set networking.auth.identityProviderURL=https://keycloak.$(minikube ip).nip.io/realms/che . && \
sleep 5s && \
kubectl patch checluster/eclipse-che --patch '{"spec": {"components": {"cheServer": {"extraProperties": {"CHE_OIDC_USERNAME__CLAIM": "email"}}}}}' --type=merge -n eclipse-che

Verification steps

Verify the Che instance status:
```
chectl server:status
```
Navigate to the Che cluster instance:
```
chectl dashboard:open
```
Log in to the Che instance with Username: test and Password: test.

Additional resources

Configuring Eclipse Che with self-signed certificate