Access Confluence and JIRA within our work network via a url in a web browser

[Marc Maessen]

I've worked with the Atlassian suite (Confluence and Jira) in an On Demand setup for 2 months now, have pursuaded our company that this is the tool which we need in order to optimise our processes and have switched over to an On Premise sollution. I've succesfully installed and configured both JIRA, Confluence and their respective plugins to our on premise server (called PWIAL401) and have also succesfully migrated all On Demand data. When I log on to my server with a Remote Desktop session I can use all products perfectly.

The one thing I don't understand is how a regular user can access the Confluence and JIRA instances from his own web browser on his own computer (within the same work network so no regular internet access outside the work network) without having to logon to the server directly with a remote desktop session.

I don't know if I'm explaining this correctly, but for example with HP Quality center which we have installed on an internal server in our work network, we can access HP QC on any computer through the webbrowser through the url http://servername:8080/qcbin

It is this functionality which I require with the Atlassian suite, that I can enter a url in a webbrowser on a computer within the our worknetwork which would then allow me to logon to Jira and Confluence.

I have tried accessing it via a number of different urls like http://pwial401.prd.corp:8080, http://pwial401.prd.corp:8090, http://pwial401.prd.corp:8080/confluencebut am unable to make a connection.

I've also read the "Configure the Server Base URL" section but I don't think changing this is my next supposed action. Is there any firewall setting or something I need to change perhaps?

Can you please point me in the right direction as to how I can determine what the url is which I can communicate to users so they can access Confluence and JIRA and perhaps how I can configure this url to something user friendly?

Currently this means that the entire Atlassian suite is unusable for our organisation untill this matter is resolved.

[Nic Brough [Adaptavist] · Accepted solution]

This is all about networking to be honest.

Jira and Confluence are pretty basic web applications when it comes to how they talk to the outside world. You run them on a server, then they listen on that server for connections to <ip address of server>:<port number>

Whether your server is reachable from the outside or whether it's adressed properly is all a function of your networking setup.

A lot of systems will have firewalls that prevent access to a server by default. The usual fix for that is to simply open the firewall up, but you can also move the service to a different port if the firewall already has some open. A more common approach is to whack in a proxy service though - they talk to the outside world on whatever port you want and relay info to the Jira/Confluence running locally.

Simple test - on the server, try <localhost>:<port> (whatever your Jira/Confluence is running on). That proves the local connection. Then try it with <ip address>:<port> to check that the ip address is working (Frankly, I suspect you've got those two tested already). Next try <ip address>:<port> from a REMOTE machine - if that fails, there's something blocking access (a firewall usually, but it could be on the server, or on any of the machines between your remote client and the server). If it works, then all you're really missing is a DNS entry (these convert <server name> to <ip address>)

In other words "do a bit of testing to see what networking setup is missing and then talk to your network team to open the firewalls and provide DNS"

[Marc Maessen]

Many thanks for the quick and detailed reply Nic and Steve. Before fiddling with settings and servers, I went with the approach Nic mentioned and started testing around a bit. It was indeed the firewall settings which blocked access so I set it up according to these instructions and now everything works flawlessly.

http://2012-2013.chriskrycho.com/web/jira-confluence-intranets-and-windows-firewall/

I'm a very happy confluence and jira admin here in our company at the moment :)

[Steve Gerstner [bridgingIT]]

You need a httpd-server in front of the tomcat or you have to open your firewall.

You have to do this for both confluence and jira:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Running+Confluence+behind+Apache

or,

https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/CONFKB/How+To+Setup+Confluence+with+IIS

Personally, I would recommend an apache, but I would prever the falvour of your local admin ;)