Disable all user access during maintenance

Question

We are planning a major upgrade to all our Atlassian suite and need to block users from accessing the tools during the upgrade window whilst still allowing admins in to test and configure items. For Jira and Confluence the plan is to use Application Access and remove the regular users group so that they do not get a license. This works well and allows us to allow only a limited set of users to access.

The problem we have is JSM as users who do not have a license are redirected to the portal where they are able to view tickets and even create new ones.

Does anyone know of a way to disable the portal for anonymous users globally? We found references to disabling it on a project by project basis but this will require a lot of changes, will be very time consuming and is wide open to accidental permanent change. We were hoping to find some way to globally block anonymous users (in much the same way we do for Confluence).

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks.

Mike Quentel · Answer

Bulk Remove User Access From JIRA During Maintenance Or For Test Instances

Rebekka Heilmann (viadee) · Answer

For the customers or maybe even for all users it would also be an idea to reroute the URL.

Your're on Data Center so self hosted. Someone with decent tech knowledge should  be able to temporarily reroute the URL to some sort of "Maintanance" page?

Rebekka Heilmann (viadee) · Answer

Hi @Andy Hurley

Are your instances connected to an external User directory?

You could disable the external User directory. As long as the users only exist in that one, they wouldn't be able to log in. You would need to be logged in with an Admin user from the local Jira directory and use that for the maintenance.

Disclaimer: I've not tested that and couldn't find info on whether the users are deleted or just temporarily disabled, so make sure to test it on a test instance first! According to this documentation, it sounds like it works:

You can enable or disable a directory at any time. If you disable a directory, your configuration details will remain but the application will not recognize the users and groups in that directory.