Integrating Keycloak and Zscaler for Zero-Trust Access Control

Firewalls hum. Tokens flicker. The handshake between Keycloak and Zscaler decides who gets in and who stays out.

Keycloak is identity control. Zscaler is secure access. Together they form a gate that is fast, cloud-native, and hard to break. When integrated, they give a zero-trust model that works across users, devices, and locations without slowing traffic.

The core is OpenID Connect or SAML. Keycloak issues the ID tokens. Zscaler checks them before it lets any packet pass. This means your authentication is centralized, while your access policy stays tight. You can map your Keycloak realms to Zscaler applications. You can enforce MFA at the identity stage, and have Zscaler reject any session that fails compliance.

For engineers, the setup is direct:

1. Create a new identity provider in Zscaler.
2. Point it to your Keycloak server’s SAML or OIDC endpoints.
3. Exchange metadata.
4. Test login flows under load.

Use proper realm configuration to match your user groups. In many cases, you can automate group mapping so Zscaler knows exactly which role the user has. This removes manual policy edits and avoids drift in access control. Logging is vital—Keycloak audit logs plus Zscaler transaction logs give full visibility from login to resource call.

When Keycloak and Zscaler work in sync, administrators control authentication in a single place, but keep traffic enforcement at the edge. This scales cleanly to global workforces and hybrid clouds.

Build it once, then replicate. You get speed, security, and policy consistency.

Want to see Keycloak and Zscaler running together without weeks of setup? Test it live at hoop.dev and see results in minutes.