Keycloak Unified Access Proxy

This isn’t another reverse proxy. It’s a control point. It front‑loads Keycloak’s identity and access management into every request path. It enforces authentication before traffic reaches the backend. It centralizes authorization decisions. With the Unified Access Proxy, you make the perimeter real again, even in the middle of a microservices mesh.

Keycloak Unified Access Proxy works by intercepting HTTP(S) calls, redirecting unauthenticated sessions to Keycloak for login, and injecting the necessary tokens for downstream services. It supports OIDC, SAML, and custom authentication flows. It can enforce fine‑grained access rules based on roles, groups, and claims. That means you can run legacy web apps, new APIs, and cloud‑native services behind the same security layer without code changes.

You can deploy it as a sidecar in Kubernetes. You can lock down edge traffic at an NGINX ingress. You can place it in front of monoliths, GraphQL endpoints, or WebSocket connections. The proxy handles token validation, refresh cycles, and session state. It can strip or add headers, rewrite paths, and log every request for auditing. All while Keycloak drives the authentication logic from a central instance.

Scaling is simple: the proxy is stateless. Horizontal scaling just works. You keep Keycloak highly available, and the proxies fan out across your cluster or infrastructure edge. TLS termination is supported, and integrations with certificate managers fit neatly into CI/CD. This makes the proxy a fast, fault‑tolerant shield for your services.

Security posture improves immediately. Threat surfaces shrink. Centralized login reduces phishing risk. Role‑based gates stop unauthorized calls before reaching critical workloads. Multi‑factor auth and fine‑grained permissions flow automatically from Keycloak to every backend through the Unified Access Proxy.

If you’re building or upgrading an architecture that needs strong, consistent access controls, Keycloak Unified Access Proxy gives you a zero‑friction way to enforce policy everywhere.

See it live in minutes with hoop.dev and turn your Keycloak into a unified, production‑ready access proxy today.