Application links not working and I cant access confluence within VM?

[Dipesh Ramesh]

Hello Support,

I have self hosted Confluence/JIRA (separately hosted), this is what my server.xml file looks like for confluence:

<Server port="8000" shutdown="SHUTDOWN" debug="0">
<Service name="Tomcat-Standalone">
<Connector port="8090" connectionTimeout="20000" redirectPort="8443"
maxThreads="48" minSpareThreads="10"
enableLookups="false" acceptCount="10" debug="0" URIEncoding="UTF-8"
protocol="org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11NioProtocol" proxyName="companyname.com" scheme="https" proxyPort="443" secure="true"/>

<Host name="localhost" debug="0" appBase="webapps" unpackWARs="true" autoDeploy="false" startStopThreads="4">
<Context path="" docBase="../confluence" debug="0" reloadable="false" useHttpOnly="true"> <Manager pathname="" />
<Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.StuckThreadDetectionValve" threshold="60" />
</Context>

<Context path="${confluence.context.path}/synchrony-proxy" docBase="../synchrony-proxy" debug="0" reloadable="false" useHttpOnly="true">
<Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.StuckThreadDetectionValve" threshold="60" />
</Context>
</Host>

</Engine>

</Service>
</Server>

I then changed baseURL in confluence -> restarted confluence services.

I can access confluence using baseURL outside VM (which is what I want). But I cant access confluence using baseURL locally (within VM) why is that? I can access it using localhost:8090 but when I login it keeps redirect me to login page, can anyone suggest any reason why this is happening? I need to access confluence internally to link JIRA with Confluence.

Second thing I am trying to link Confluence with JIRA 

So under Confluence administrator -> application links -> pasted self hosted JIRA link (https://mycompanyJIRA.com) and I get error as: "No response was received from the URL you entered - it may not be valid. Please fix the URL below, if needed, and click Continue." so I clicked continue

I then clicked edit -> outgoing and incoming local auth I selected OAuth. After clicking save changed i get error 'We cant't enable the incoming authentication because confluence is not reachable'

If I click on 3 dots -> Go to remote - it does take me to JIRA page so why is application link not working? what am I doing wrong? 

Regards,

Dipesh

[AhmadDanial]

Hi, Dipesh.

Let us break down the problem that you are seeing on Confluence and JIRA into 2 different sections:

Problem #1:

• While you are able to access it via localhost, can I please confirm what is the current content of the /etc/hosts on the internally? Is it reflecting the new baseURL or is it still using the old one?
• Just to double check, are you running Confluence behind proxy, example using Apache - Using Apache with mod_proxy?

Problem #2

While I am suspecting that this could possibly related to problem number 1, can you please confirm on the following?

• Can the machine hosting JIRA reach out to the hosted Confluence machine? Try to ping each other and verify if they can respond to each other / also use the following telnet command and provide the output here - echo | telnet <fqdn> 443 (HTTPS) echo | telnet <fqdn> 80 (HTTP)
• Can you check the atlassian-confluence.log to see if there are any specific errors when you try to establish the link between the 2 applications?

Let us start with those first before we dig deeper into this issue. Thanks.

[Dipesh Ramesh]

Hi Ahmad,

Problem 1

• While you are able to access it via localhost, can I please confirm what is the current content of the /etc/hosts on the internally? Is it reflecting the new baseURL or is it still using the old one?

NO - in host file everything is commented out (can i manually enter the baseURL here and will it work?)

• Just to double check, are you running Confluence behind proxy, example using Apache - Using Apache with mod_proxy?

YES - I am running confluence behind proxy tomcat 

Problem 2

• Can the machine hosting JIRA reach out to the hosted Confluence machine? Try to ping each other and verify if they can respond to each other / also use the following telnet command and provide the output here - echo | telnet <fqdn> 443 (HTTPS) echo | telnet <fqdn> 80 (HTTP)

Both JIRA/confluence are hosted in different server. I can ping confluence in JIRA box and JIRA in confluence box. 

In JIRA box I can telnet 'JIRAURL.com 8080' and 443 but in confluence I get error as could not open connect to host, on port 8080 connect failed' this is because confluence baseURL is not working at all

• Can you check the atlassian-confluence.log to see if there are any specific errors when you try to establish the link between the 2 applications?

Confluence I cannot link application at all, when i do localhost:8080 and try logging in I get redirected to login page again (its stuck in loop)

however outside the server I can login but change made here wont show in confluence log file. 

Regards,

Dipesh

[AhmadDanial]

Hello, Dipesh.

As of now, it seems that the issue comes from Confluence itself since you mentioned the following:

• in confluence I get error as could not open connect to host, on port 8080 connect failed' this is because confluence baseURL is not working at all
• Confluence I cannot link application at all, when i do localhost:8080 and try logging in I get redirected to login page again (its stuck in loop)

According to the server.xml you shared, the Connector ports is set to 8090. What happens when you try to log in from localhost:8090? Are you still redirected to the log in page again? What is shown in the atlassian-confluence log?

[Dipesh Ramesh]

Hi Ahmad,

localhost:8080 dont work but localhost:8090 do work. When I log in using localhost:8090 I face same issue (get redirected to login page)

I dont have a log file call atlassian-confluence log I do have confluence075433-stderr.2018-09-11. When I open the file and click login it logs nothing (however it does log when I restart confluenc etc... )

To include:

If I remove secure="true" from conector. I can access confluence using localhost:8090 and login. But then I get a popup on right handside "confluence base URL is set to https://mycompany.com but you can accessing confluence from http://localhost:8090"

If I try accessing directly https://mycompany.com within VM I get page cant be displayed error 

[Dipesh Ramesh]

To confirm baseURL in confluence should added as 'https://mycompany/com' correct? its not https://mycompany/com:443

[AhmadDanial]

Hi there, Dipesh.

Some follow up questions from my end:

• Can you please specifically provide the screen shot of the error that you are seeing when you accessed https://mycompany.com from your VM's browser?
• Does the VM has connection to the outside internet that allows it to reach out to mycompany.com which could be the reason why you are seeing the error on the VM?

The baseURL of the Confluence instance should be set to the FQDN, yes. There is no need to configure the HTTPS port 443 as mentioned in the Configuring the Server Base URL documentation.

Additionally, did you try to use a different browser / clear the cache of the browser that you are using since the local cache might be the reason why you are getting redirected to the log in page as mentioned in the I keep getting redirected to login page for confluence question?

[Dipesh Ramesh]

This is the error I get 

VM does have access (I can ping JIRA host in confluence box and other way around) and Yes i've tried 2 browsers 

To resolve this issue I have removed secure="true" from server.xml file, and I can log into localhost:8090. I can access baseURL outside VM and using that for configuration (I dont mind doing that)

But I do want to link applications (JIRA with confluence) is not working even from outside.

To link application I have logged into confluence outside VM as admin and visited general configuration -> configure application link -> pasted JIRA link in box and clicked create new link I get this box. Do I have to enter consumer key, shared secret etc... ? 

Also I have added following lines in server.xml (at the bottom of the file to run this over SSL). But this will not make any difference. 

<Connector port="8443" maxHttpHeaderSize="8192"
                   maxThreads="150" minSpareThreads="25" maxSpareThreads="75"
                   enableLookups="false" disableUploadTimeout="true"
                   acceptCount="100" scheme="https" secure="true"
                   clientAuth="false" sslProtocol="TLS" SSLEnabled="true"
                   URIEncoding="UTF-8" keystoreFile="directory" keystoreType="PFX" keystorePass="PASSWORD"/>

Regards,

Diipesh