Applications

To use Identity for authentication, each deployed component requires an application to be created.

When an application is created in the Identity UI, a client ID and client secret are generated and can be used in the component configuration to allow authentication flows to happen.

Want to learn how to add an application in Identity?

See our documentation on adding an application for more help.

Types of applications

There are three types of applications in Identity:

• Confidential
• Machine-to-machine
• Public

A type is selected when creating the application based on its ability to securely store and use secrets, as well as the mode of authentication it uses.

Type	Secret	User login flow	M2M authentication
Confidential	Yes	Yes	Yes
M2M	Yes	No	Yes
Public	No	Yes	No

note

See more details on OAuth client types here, and more information specifically on confidential and public applications here.

Permissions

Access to the components within the stack can be controlled by the permissions assigned to an application.

Want to learn how to assign a permission to an application in Identity?

See our user guide on assigning a permission to an application for more help.