Does having multiple user directories cause issues in Jira Software

Ian

Hello,

 

We have been using OKTA to create users in our Jira Software internal directory, we wanted to use an app called SAML single sign-on with OKTA to manage users. In our Dev environment we installed and configured the app, by doing this it created a new directory which we named Test and synced the users from OKTA to the the test directory, we then made test the first directory and the Internal directory is second. We worry that since both directories have the same users, we would run into issues with user log-in. We were hoping if anyone can provide some guidance,  if this is OK or should we look into wiping the internal directory.

 

Thank you,

Ian

Nic Brough -Adaptavist-

It can cause issues if you don't understand how the server works with the directories.

It's not quite as simple as this, but think of each user account, wherever they are from as having a unique identifier inside the Jira data, as well as an identifier in each directory that might not be unique in Jira.

This is usually easier with an example.  Imagine we have two directories, three people and four accounts:

Account	Directory	Jira ID
Alice	d1	alice-46
Bob	d1	bob-31
Bob	d2	bob-12
Charlie	d2	charlie-82

I don't need to explain how Alice and Charlie are going to work, but Bob matters.

If you need to work with Bob, you'll find Bob only appears in Jira once, because it's the same in both directories.   Jira reads the directories until it finds the first Bob, and stops.

Bob in d1 (bob-31) "masks" or "shields" Bob in d2 (bob-12)

If your admins reverse the order of the directories, they're going to cause Bob problems. Imagine Bob creates an issue before the change, while logged in as Bob (bob-31).  After the change, Jira will be showing Bob as the reporter, but because Bob is now logged in as Bob (bob-12), if they ask "Reporter = Bob", they won't find the issue, because it's reported by Bob (bob-31)