Keycloak 26.4.0 Breaks Backstage Subgroup Imports: What To Do?
Hey guys, if you're rocking Backstage with Keycloak for your identity management, you might have hit a bit of a snag recently, especially if you've updated your Keycloak instance to version 26.4.0 or newer. We're talking about a peculiar issue where your subgroups aren't being imported into Backstage as expected. This isn't just a minor inconvenience; it can seriously impact how your teams are structured and managed within Backstage, potentially leading to incomplete user directories and difficult permission handling. The core of the problem lies in a significant security-driven change Keycloak introduced, which altered how the serverinfo endpoint behaves, specifically regarding the availability of systemInfo and, critically, the Keycloak version number. This version number was a crucial piece of data that the Backstage Keycloak plugin relied upon to correctly determine which API to use for fetching those precious subgroups. Without it, the plugin essentially gets confused, falling back to older methods that don't support the newer subgroup structures.
This article is going to dive deep into what exactly happened, why it's affecting your Backstage setup, and most importantly, what you can do about it. We'll explore the technical changes in Keycloak, how Backstage was designed to handle subgroups, and the implications of this new security measure. Our goal here is to not only explain the backstage-keycloak subgroup import failure but also to provide valuable insights and potential paths forward so you can get your identity management flowing smoothly again. So, grab a coffee, and let's unravel this mystery together to ensure your development experience remains top-notch and your subgroups are where they need to be!
The Root of the Problem: Keycloak's Security Update
Alright, let's get right to the heart of the matter: the recent Keycloak 26.4.0 update and its impact on how Backstage imports your subgroups. This isn't just a random bug; it stems from a deliberate and important security enhancement made within Keycloak itself. Specifically, starting with Keycloak 26.4.0, the serverinfo endpoint, which is typically used by client applications (like the Backstage Keycloak plugin) to gather general information about the Keycloak installation, no longer provides system information by default. This change was implemented for very valid security reasons, limiting potentially sensitive data exposure. While great for overall security posture, it creates a challenge for applications that relied on this data, such as our beloved Backstage.
What precisely changed? Well, before 26.4.0, the serverinfo endpoint would readily serve up details including systemInfo, which contained the Keycloak version number. The Backstage plugin, being clever, used this version number to figure out the correct API mechanism for loading subgroups. You see, Keycloak's API for managing subgroups has evolved over different versions, and the plugin needed to know which specific version it was talking to in order to use the right communication method. The official Keycloak Release Notes explicitly state: "The serverinfo endpoint only returns the system info for administrators in the administrator realm." This means that non-administrator clients or administrators in common realms won't get that crucial systemInfo by default. This change is a big deal because it directly impacts the ability of the Backstage plugin to dynamically adapt to your Keycloak environment. If it can't determine the Keycloak version, it can't correctly choose the modern API required for subgroups, causing those subgroups to simply not show up in Backstage. The plugin needs that version info to make an informed decision on how to talk to Keycloak, and without it, it's essentially flying blind when it comes to subgroup-specific API calls.
Keycloak did offer a temporary workaround for administrators in common realms who absolutely needed to access systemInfo: you could create and assign a new view-system client role within the realm-management client. This would grant the necessary permissions. However, and this is a critical point, Keycloak has already marked this workaround as deprecated, signaling that it could be removed in a future version. This tells us that relying on this view-system role isn't a long-term, sustainable solution. It's a stop-gap measure at best, and it certainly doesn't address the fundamental design challenge for plugins like Backstage that need to gracefully handle these API versioning differences. So, while you might think about using that role, remember it's a very temporary band-aid and not the ultimate fix for the keycloak subgroup import issue that many are now facing. We need something more robust, something that understands the security implications while still allowing for proper integration.
How Backstage Keycloak Plugin Handles Subgroups (Before the Change)
Before this latest Keycloak update threw a wrench in the works, the Backstage Keycloak plugin had a pretty clever way of handling subgroup imports, and it all revolved around smart version detection. The plugin was designed to be robust and adaptable, understanding that Keycloak's API evolves over time. When Backstage started up and connected to your Keycloak instance, the first thing it would try to do was figure out which version of Keycloak it was talking to. This was achieved by querying that very same serverinfo endpoint we just discussed, specifically looking for the systemInfo that contained the Keycloak version number. It was a seemingly innocuous piece of data, but it was absolutely crucial for the plugin's operational logic.
Once the Backstage plugin knew the Keycloak version, it could then dynamically decide which API to use for fetching user groups and, more importantly, those nested subgroups. For instance, Keycloak introduced significant improvements and dedicated APIs for subgroup management around version 23. So, if the plugin detected Keycloak version 23 or higher, it would confidently switch to using the newer, more efficient, and feature-rich API specifically designed for handling subgroups. This ensured that Backstage could correctly traverse your intricate Keycloak group hierarchies, pulling in all those nested teams and departments that make up your organization's structure. This mechanism was a testament to the plugin's thoughtful design, allowing it to support a wide range of Keycloak versions while always trying to leverage the best available API for optimal performance and correctness. It directly addressed the complexity of keycloak subgroup synchronization by intelligently adapting to the underlying platform capabilities.
Consider the snippet from the Backstage community plugins codebase, which beautifully illustrates this logic: https://github.com/backstage/community-plugins/blob/8d37a31170451581e4f3aba9c0734d5c2f036e13/workspaces/keycloak/plugins/catalog-backend-module-keycloak/src/lib/read.ts#L294-L322. This section of the code explicitly shows the conditional logic: if the detected Keycloak version is less than 23, it uses one method; if it's 23 or greater, it switches to another, more modern method. This version-dependent switch was the cornerstone of reliable subgroup loading. It ensured that whether you were running an older Keycloak instance or a bleeding-edge one, Backstage would know precisely how to talk to it to get all the group data. The entire purpose was to provide a seamless and accurate representation of your Keycloak groups and subgroups within the Backstage catalog, making it easy for developers to find teams and understand organizational structures. Without the ability to perform this initial version check, the plugin is now in a bind, unable to activate the correct, modern API for subgroups, which leads us directly to the