SSO Confluence Authenticator does not add users to Internal Directory

Question

I am having an SSO issue which is basically the same as below, but with Confluence.

[https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/222631/jira-ad-custom-sso]

Previously, we have been using the Internal Confluence Directory autenticated via LDAP.

Addition of a custom SSO authenticator (written by a 3rd party) has been successful in a test environment, but only for users who already had a confluence account.  Users who did not previously have an account are not added to {noformat}cwd_user{noformat}, nor are any default groups added to the internal directory.

I'm unwilling to hand over all control of users and groups to an external SSO provider since that would limit the use of user-groups within individual spaces.  Ideally I'd like a way to use the default confluence authenticator if the user has not previously logged on via LDAP and otherwise use the SSO authenticator.

Does anyone have any suggestions on this?

Robert Knights1 · Answer

Yes, the external user directory (AD) is set for use in authentication only, but the internal directory is used to determine whether a user exists and what group they belong to.

ie. The default confluence authenticator allows you to configure a combined user/group management solution in which Confluence Manages users and groups and AD (the external directory) is used for authentication only.

Internal with External Authentication vs Full External user/group managemen

Because this is a 3rd party SSO provider, I'm currently unsure whether their system is most appropriate for both group/user management as well as authentication and so was hoping to use the existing Internal Directory with the SSO service for authentication only until this is determined.  The SSO provider and the Confluence Internal Directory both authenticate against AD.

I am also unsure how this will work in terms of making sure that new users are automatically added to the appropriate default user group in the SSO provider after beginning use of confluence for the first time and how easy it will be to migrate existing groups to the SSO service synced with AD while maintaining user/group memberships other user/group metadata from the existing Confluence Internal Directory.

Questions:

* Is it possible to configure an SSO provider to only authenticate against AD while still copying users to the internal confluence directory and placing them in the appropriate default user group?

* If the above is not the best solution, what are the steps in migrating existing internal user metadata (groups etc) from the Internal Directory with LDAP Authentication to a new confluence User Directory?

Alejandro Conde Carrillo · Answer

Did you set a external user directory (LDAP) which contains the users which should authenticate? I think you will need to set the external directory in Confluence (and synchronize them) to be able to authenticate user from that directory using SSO.