How to filter users by client IP

Question

Hi

I wanted to expose my JIRA outside.

Problem is, I want to restrict the access to my JIRA only to a certain user.

That is, if accessing the JIRA from IP X only user Y will be able to access.

If accessing from IP Z, only user Q will be able to access

Thanks

Oded Shafran · Answer

I am using the standalone using Tomcat...

I want to be able to allow access only to one user when its accessing via a specific IP.

How can webserver communicate with the JIRA application?

unknown · Answer

Depending on the numbers of users involved, restricting access to a nominated user group is best done with a Client Certificate, irrespectie of ISP and or location, a certificate identifies a user.  However, such a service comes with an admin overhead, you have to manage the revocation of certificates, for users that move on etc.

More info on Client Certs with Apache - http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/ssl/ssl_howto.html#accesscontrol

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

Security by IP address range is never a good idea, it's too easy to spoof IPs and it's unlikely that your user will have a fixed IP address unless they've got a dedicated IP for their organisation.  (One of my clients did this recently, and ran straight into a wall when the people they were trying to limit access to turned out to be using a standard ISP, who renewed their IP lease and hence IP address every couple of weeks.  Gave access to someone else at the same ISP as well as locking out the real users)

If you want to restrict by IP though, then you'll either have to code something into Jira's authentication code, or you can configure your webserver to restrict the access.  I've seen it done in Apache, and I know it's possible in IIS if yo're using that.