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JIRA Rest API authentication always returns 401 unauthorized

Pierre-Louis Gottfrois

I have been trying for hours the following simple CURL command described in the documentation without any success. It always returns me a 401 unauthorized.

curl -D- -u "email:password" -X GET -H "Content-Type: application/json" https://textmaster.jira.com/rest/api/2/issue/TM-3450

I have checked that my confluence config has the "allow remote api calls" set to true. What should I do to make this work?

Note: I'm able to access the rest API from the browser directly, while logged in with my user account.

Note: It's a linked google account with a password set.

Accepted answers

Taha Khanzada

Hi Pierre-Louis,

Silly question but your email is your username? if not then your command should be replaced with JIRA username. Also since your connection is https but -k at the end of the URL and try again

curl -D- -u "username:password" -X GET -H "Content-Type: application/json" https://textmaster.jira.com/rest/api/2/issue/TM-3450 -k

Also if that is not the case then you can try other authentication technique like Oauth.

Taha

All comments

Taha Khanzada

Hi Pierre-Louis,

Silly question but your email is your username? if not then your command should be replaced with JIRA username. Also since your connection is https but -k at the end of the URL and try again

curl -D- -u "username:password" -X GET -H "Content-Type: application/json" https://textmaster.jira.com/rest/api/2/issue/TM-3450 -k

Also if that is not the case then you can try other authentication technique like Oauth.

Taha

Nate Brustein

I just wanted to add a comment because I skipped by this answer and then kept looking for a while before realizing this was the correct answer. Even though I login to confluence with `nate@mydomain.com`, that is not the username to user when authenticating against the api. Against the api, I have to use `nate` as the username.

Jonathan Sullivan

This can't be stated enough. The API docs aren't clear and make it sound like the website authentication is exactly the same as the rest API authentication. The website works with both username and email as the "username" while the rest API only works with username. You can see your "username" by viewing your profile in JIRA.

georgy kagan

Jesus... I spent hours trying to figure out why, are we supposed to be mind readers? You have to emphasize this fact in your documentation, since it's almost ubiquitous that both email and username can be used to authenticate.

Joakim Söderberg

Note that if you are logging in via a sync Google account, it is NOT the google password you are supposed to use. Also it is not the email.

Instead you should go to your user profile and look up your username and set a password.

https://confluence.atlassian.com/cloud/manage-your-profile-and-password-744721602.html

For site admin functions, RSS feeds, REST API access, or WebDAV uploads you'll need to have an Atlassian Cloud password (separate to your Google Apps password. If you haven't set an Atlassian Cloud password, go to the login page and choose Unable to access your account? in the Atlassian Cloud login section.

Of course it makes no sense that this information is not available on the REST API documentation page, since it is quite crucial to get it working.

Adam Zadikoff

Is there a way to do this in the new JIRA experience? I can't seem to find any information and the link you provided is now dead.

Sean McConkey

Having the same issue.

Sharoon Thomas

Faced the same issue and found the solution (as of June 2018).

The username IS the full email.

The password is NOT your password to login, but an API token. To generate an API token, go to https://id.atlassian.com/manage/api-tokens# and create a new one.

So the username is the full email and the password is the API token from above step for using basic auth with Jira API.

unknown

Thanks it works for me

Santosh Satyan

I am still facing the issue. This is what I have configured in Jenkins (Jira Issue Updater 1.18):

https://companyname.atlassian.net/rest/api/2

Username: {Email} (also set as the username)

Password: {Token}

Am I missing any step? Appreciate your response.

Thanks!

Jesper den Boer

Thanks for the tip!

Aalok_Bhatwal

I was facing a similar issue too. In case if someone trying to access the data using HttpWebRequest instead of curl, remember to base64 the credentials.

string Token = email + ":" + apiToken;

Token = Convert.ToBase64String(UTF8.GetBytes(Token));

req.Headers.Add("Authorization", "Basic " + Token);

Verita

It works, Thanks you

Spencer Loveridge

Just in case any Gmail users gets to here and is still facing issues, make sure you use the exact email that is associated with your account:

gmail.com googlemail.com

Lost a day or two on that one.

Gmail accepts both, most websites dont.

Xiaobo Zhang

Amazing!!!

It works for me using API token to repalce the password. Thanks!

Jean-Marcel Belmont

I also faced this issue like others. I was able to successfully use my email with the rest api and then I created a new api token in https://id.atlassian.com/manage/api-tokens I used the openssl command like this:

printf myusername@domain.net:mypassword | openssl base64
bXl1c2VybmFtZUBkb21haW4ubmV0Om15cGFzc3dvcmQ=

For basic authentication to work you can't have a newline character so that is why I used printf to basic 64 encode, then you can make a rest call like this:

GET /rest/api/2/user?username=myusername HTTP/1.1
Host: somedomain.net
Authorization: Basic bXl1c2VybmFtZUBkb21haW4ubmV0Om15cGFzc3dvcmQ=
Accept: application/json

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