<chapter id="cors">
<title>CORS</title>
<para>
CORS stands for Cross-Origin Resource Sharing. If executing browser Javascript tries to make an AJAX HTTP request
to a server's whose domain is different than the one the Javascript code came from, then the request uses the
<ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/cors/">CORS protocol</ulink>. The server must handle CORS requests in a special
way, otherwise the browser will not display or allow the request to be processed. This protocol exists to protect
against XSS and other Javascript-based attacks. Keycloak has support for validated CORS requests.
</para>
<para>
Keycloak's CORS support is configured per application and oauth client. You specify the allowed origins
in the application's or oauth client's configuration page in the admin console. You can add as many you want. The value
must be what the browser would send as a value in the <literal>Origin</literal> header. For example <literal>http://example.com</literal>
is what you must specify to allow CORS requests from <literal>example.com</literal>. When an access token is
created for the application or OAuth client, these allowed origins are embedded within the token. On authenticated
CORS requests, your application's Keycloak adapter will handle the CORS protocol and validate the <literal>Origin</literal>
header against the allowed origins embedded in the token. If there is no match, then the request is denied.
</para>
<para>
To enable CORS processing in your application's server, you must set the <literal>enable-cors</literal> setting
to <literal>true</literal> in your <link linkend='adapter-config'>adapter's configuration file</link>. When this
setting is enabled, the Keycloak adapter will handle all CORS preflight requests. It will validate authenticated
requests (protected resource requests), but will let unauthenticated requests (unprotected resource requests) pass through.
</para>
</chapter>