Disable built in admin account

[Michael Salisbury]

Hi there,

Do I need to keep the built in admin account active if I am syncing to an external directory in which I have other Confluence administrators?  We have a 10 user license, but the admin account seems to take up a license even though it's not in use, so I'd like to disable it.  Is this a valid configuration?

Thanks

Michael

[Steven F Behnke · Accepted solution]

If you do not have a known account on the internal directory, you will be unable to access the application in the event the external directory doesn't work.

If you have access to the database and are aware of how to create and provision a new administrator account in the case of an issue, this isn't too big of a worry. If you're not comfortable figuring out the SQL yourself, there are KB articles and Atlassian Support is aware of how to help customers when they are in this bind.

[Michael Salisbury]

Thanks Steven.  If our external directory doesn't work we have bigger issues (Active Directory), and I'm comfortable working following the KB articles (do you have them on hand?) to set up a new account through SQL (or enable the existing admin user).

[Steven F Behnke]

No problem.

I agree, this is something of a non-issue. Some customers don't see eye-to-eye on that matter though, which is why I approached it the way I did.

If you're simply re-enabling an account – 

UPDATE cwd_user
SET active = 'T'
WHERE user_name ='<user_name>';

PLEASE make sure to use the exact version of documentation pertaining to your instance of Confluence, especially when running SQL queries. Measure twice, cut once!

https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/restore-passwords-to-recover-admin-user-rights-158390.html

image2016-8-3 21:38:58.png

[Davin Studer]

Another point to consider is that a member of an external directory cannot make changes to the config of that directory ... even if that user is a system admin. So, for instance if you setup Confluence to use an LDAP directory none of the members that are synced in via that external directory can edit the config for the directory, but the local admin account can. If you decide down the road that you need to change what LDAP users should be synced in or what LDAP groups need to be synced in you would have to re-enable the admin account. And if you are already on the line for licenses that could cause an issue as you might have to deactivate another account first. I would tend to leave it enabled and just understand that that is one of your users and plan for it.