Merge Jira user with LDAP User

Question

Hey folks!

We've recently configured the LDAP Synchronisation, what makes Administration a lot easyer!
But we've run in some issues. 
Now we have "local" Jira user Accounts like for e.g. "ABoy" and an LDAP user "Anton Boy", which are for the same Person.

Is there any way to merge these two Accounts?

Appriciante you Help!

Georgi Yankov · Answer

You need to disable the LDAP integration and then change the local user username and/or email address (whether you use sAMAcount name or UPN) and then enable again the LDAP directory. User would still lose all local groups, but you can write those down and manually add them via the GUI or script using the API. Per User project permissions and everything else is moved.

Pavel Potcheptsov · Answer

Hi Andy,
I have the same story and in my case the account name (i.e. login name) on Jira and on LDAP is the same. But when I set LDAP as the first User Directory to look for an user from LDAP is able to login to Jira but this account is like a fresh one and different from the old one on Jira with history, comments, task assignment, etc.
Is there naturally a way to merge this so that existing user uses LDAP for authentication but once logged it he gets into existing account?

Andy Heinzer · Answer

Hi,

I understand that you've recently added an LDAP user directory to Jira to help manage user accounts.  However since it appears that the usernames in the LDAP are not exactly the same as the existing usernames in Jira, you likely have users that now have two different logins for Jira.

Jira does not have a good way to natively manage the merger of two user accounts that have different names.  Instead the ideal way to manage this in would be to first align the usernames between the user directories before you add that user directory to Jira. This can be done by either changing the name within Jira's internal user directory to match that in LDAP, or the less popular, change the username in LDAP to match that in Jira.

Jira can have multiple user directories, and each of those directories might have overlapping usernames.  If that happens, only the account credentials in the highest ordered directory within Jira will be able to login to Jira.   So if you happen to rename the example username in both locations to the same value, say 'ABoy', then the order of the directories in Jira will very much matter as to which password is needed to login to Jira.

I suggest that you rename the user account in Jira's internal user directory first, and then change the order of directories so the LDAP is higher.  This way, your users can use their LDAP credentials now to login to Jira, and if the rename has happened for each account already, the issue history will still be maintained.   Lots more details on how Jira manages multiple user directories like this in Managing multiple directories.

I hope this helps, let me know if you have any questions about this.

Andy