
:guide-id: configuration-provider
:guide-title: Configuring providers
:guide-summary: Understand how to configure providers
:guide-priority: 999
:guide-tile-visible: true
:version: 26.2.2

include::../attributes.adoc[]

[[configuration-provider]]
= Configuring providers

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The server is built with extensibility in mind and for that it provides a number of Service Provider Interfaces or SPIs, each one
responsible for providing a specific capability to the server. In this {section}, you are going to understand the core concepts around
the configuration of SPIs and their respective providers.

After reading this {section}, you should be able to use the concepts and the steps herein explained to install, uninstall, enable, disable, and configure
any provider, including those you have implemented to extend the server capabilities in order to better fulfill your requirements.

== Configuration option format

Providers can be configured by using a specific configuration format. The format consists of:

[source]
----
spi-<spi-id>-<provider-id>-<property>=<value>
----

The `<spi-id>` is the name of the SPI you want to configure.

The `<provider-id>` is the id of the provider you want to configure. This is the id set to the corresponding provider factory implementation.

The `<property>` is the actual name of the property you want to set for a given provider.

All those names (for spi, provider, and property) should be in lower case and if the name is in camel-case such as `myKeycloakProvider`, it should include dashes (`-`) before upper-case letters as follows: `my-keycloak-provider`.

Taking the `HttpClientSpi` SPI as an example, the name of the SPI is `connectionsHttpClient` and one of the provider implementations available is named `default`. In order to set the `connectionPoolSize` property you would use a configuration option as follows:

[source]
----
spi-connections-http-client-default-connection-pool-size=10
----

== Setting a provider configuration option

Provider configuration options are provided when starting the server. See all support configuration sources and formats for options in link:{links_server_configuration_url}[{links_server_configuration_name}]. For example via a command line option:

.Setting the `connection-pool-size` for the `default` provider of the `connections-http-client` SPI
[source,bash]
----
bin/kc.[sh|bat] start --spi-connections-http-client-default-connection-pool-size=10
----

== Configuring a single provider for an SPI

Depending on the SPI, multiple provider implementations can co-exist but only one of them is going to be used at runtime.
For these SPIs, a specific provider is the primary implementation that is going to be active and used at runtime.

To configure a provider as the single provider you should run the `build` command as follows:

.Marking the `mycustomprovider` provider as the single provider for the `email-template` SPI
[source,bash]
----
bin/kc.[sh|bat] build --spi-email-template-provider=mycustomprovider
----

== Configuring a default provider for an SPI

Depending on the SPI, multiple provider implementations can co-exist and one is used by default.
For these SPIs, a specific provider is the default implementation that is going to selected unless a specific provider
is requested.

The following logic is used to determine the default provider:

1. The explicitly configured default provider
2. The provider with the highest order (providers with order <= 0 are ignored)
3. The provider with the id set to `default`

To configure a provider as the default provider you should run the `build` command as follows:

.Marking the `mycustomhash` provider as the default provider for the `password-hashing` SPI
[source,bash]
----
bin/kc.[sh|bat] build --spi-password-hashing-provider-default=mycustomprovider
----


== Enabling and disabling a provider

To enable or disable a provider you should run the `build` command as follows:

.Enabling a provider
[source,bash]
----
bin/kc.[sh|bat] build --spi-email-template-mycustomprovider-enabled=true
----

To disable a provider, use the same command and set the `enabled` property to `false`.

== Installing and uninstalling a provider

Custom providers should be packaged in a Java Archive (JAR) file and copied to the `providers` directory of the distribution. After that,
you must run the `build` command in order to update the server's provider registry with the implementations from the JAR file.

This step is needed in order to optimize the server runtime so that all providers are known ahead-of-time rather than discovered only when starting the server or at runtime.

To uninstall a provider, you should remove the JAR file from the `providers` directory and run the `build` command again.

== Using third-party dependencies

When implementing a provider you might need to use some third-party dependency that is not available from the server distribution.

In this case, you should copy any additional dependency to the `providers` directory and run the `build` command.
Once you do that, the server is going to make these additional dependencies available at runtime for any provider that depends on them.

== References

* link:{links_server_configuration_url}[{links_server_configuration_name}]
* https://www.keycloak.org/docs/latest/server_development/#_providers[Server Developer Documentation]


