Step 1: Install Java JDK

• Keycloak requires Java (JDK 17 or newer).
• Download from Adoptium Temurin or Oracle.
• After install, set the JAVA_HOME environment variable.
  Confirm by running java -version in Command Prompt.

Step 2: Download and Extract Keycloak

• Get the Quarkus (.zip) distribution from the Keycloak release page.
• Extract it to a folder, e.g., C:\keycloak\

Step 3: Start XAMPP and MySQL

• Open XAMPP and Start Apache and MySQL.
• Create a database for Keycloak (example: keycloak_db) using phpMyAdmin.

Step 4: Configure Keycloak to Use XAMPP Database (optional but recommended)

• In C:\keycloak\conf\keycloak.conf add:textdb=mariadb db-url=jdbc:mariadb://localhost:3306/keycloak_db db-username=root db-password=YOUR_PASSWORD If using XAMPP’s MariaDB with socket, see for unix_socket setup.
• Copy the MariaDB JDBC driver (mariadb-java-client-*.jar) to C:\keycloak\providers if not included.

Step 5: Start Keycloak

• Open Command Prompt.
• Go to C:\keycloak\bin
• For first run, set admin username and password:textset KEYCLOAK_ADMIN=admin set KEYCLOAK_ADMIN_PASSWORD=admin123 kc.bat start-dev
• Wait for “Keycloak started” message.

Step 6: Access Keycloak Console

• Open browser to:
  http://localhost:8080/
• Login with admin/admin123 (or your set credentials).

Notes

• XAMPP is only needed for MySQL/MariaDB.
  Keycloak runs as its own server and does not “install inside” XAMPP.
• For production, run Keycloak as a Windows service (nssm can help; see ), and use secure passwords.
• Official guides:
  Keycloak Docs
  Step-by-step Windows