Admin Console Tour

The admin console is your control centre for Keycloak. Every realm, client, user, role, and identity provider is created and managed here. Before you create anything, it is worth spending a few minutes understanding the layout so you do not get lost.

Signing in

1. Make sure Keycloak is running (see the previous lesson if you have not started it yet).
2. Open http://localhost:8080 in your browser.
3. Click “Administration Console”.
4. Enter admin as the username and admin as the password.
5. Click “Sign in”. You land on the master realm’s home page.

The realm selector

The top-left of the admin console shows the current realm name — by default “Keycloak” (the master realm). Click it to open a drop-down that lists all your realms and lets you create a new one. Always check which realm you are in before making changes — it is easy to accidentally create a client in the wrong realm.

The left navigation

The sidebar gives you access to every resource in the current realm:

Nav item	What you manage here
Realm settings	Token lifespans, security defences, email settings, themes
Clients	Applications registered to use this realm for auth
Client scopes	Shared protocol mappers and scope definitions
Realm roles	Roles available to all clients in this realm
Users	User accounts, credentials, and role assignments
Groups	User groups and group-level role assignments
Identity providers	External IdPs (Google, GitHub, SAML, OIDC)
User federation	LDAP and Active Directory connections
Sessions	Active user sessions across all clients
Events	Audit log of login events and admin events

Creating your first realm (warm-up)

1. Click the realm selector (top-left).
2. Click “Create realm”.
3. In the “Realm name” field, enter my-app (lowercase, no spaces).
4. Leave “Enabled” toggled on.
5. Click “Create”.
6. You are now inside the my-app realm. The top-left selector now shows “my-app”.

🔐 Always check your realm

Always switch to YOUR realm (top-left selector) before creating clients, users, or roles — it is easy to accidentally work in master. Objects created in master are not visible in your application’s realm.

Where do you find the realm selector in the admin console?

Bottom-right corner Top-left corner The Settings menu The Users tab

Which nav section lets you manage applications that integrate with Keycloak?

Realm settings Users Clients Sessions

What is a safe realm name format?

MY APP my_app! my-app My App 2024

Why should you avoid working in the master realm for your application?

The master realm has no clients tab Objects in master are invisible to application realms; master is for administering Keycloak itself The master realm cannot be deleted Users cannot log in via the master realm

Submit

Mark as complete