Implementation flow

Mirantis IAM performs as an OpenID Connect (OIDC) provider, it issues a token and exposes discovery endpoints.

The credentials can be handled by IAM itself or delegated to an external identity provider (IdP).

The issued JSON Web Token (JWT) is sufficient to perform operations across Mirantis Container Cloud according to the scope and role defined in it. Mirantis recommends using asymmetric cryptography for token signing (RS256) to minimize the dependency between IAM and managed components.

When Container Cloud calls Mirantis Kubernetes Engine (MKE), the user in Keycloak is created automatically with a JWT issued by Keycloak on behalf of the end user. MKE, in its turn, verifies whether the JWT is issued by Keycloak. If the user retrieved from the token does not exist in the MKE database, the user is automatically created in the MKE database based on the information from the token.

The authorization implementation is out of the scope of IAM in Container Cloud. This functionality is delegated to the component level. IAM interacts with a Container Cloud component using the OIDC token content that is processed by a component itself and required authorization is enforced. Such an approach enables you to have any underlying authorization that is not dependent on IAM and still to provide a unified user experience across all Container Cloud components.