Unlicensed User Access to Specific Pages

[Won C]

Hello Atlassian Community,

If it matters, the context for this would be a premium plan license for Confluence Cloud (not yet purchased, currently evaluating options). I mention this as external collaboration may address this depending on how that actually pans out once it is fully released and what the final licensing model looks like. 

I'm looking to verify if it is still the case that in order to grant view only permissions to a page using Confluence scoped to a specific set of non-licensed individuals that the only options are: 

1. JSD -> project -> Knowledge Base which can then allow non-licensed users to view specific pages 
2. Acquiring more licenses and bringing those non-licensed individuals into the fold even though they would only be added for view-only purposes and to not contribute
3. Grant anonymous access (but since this would be Confluence Cloud, that would mean it would be accessible to "everyone" so it's a non-starter unless the IP allowlisting within the Premium plan would actually allow restricting access to Confluence from specific IP ranges even with granting anonymous access permissions)

I came across these two previous community questions when searching for similar threads, but noticed that they were from 2-3 years ago so I wanted to check in to see if things are still status quo with prior responses or if things have since changed and there are new suggestions. 

• https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-questions/How-to-give-space-access-to-unlicensed-users/qaq-p/1023522?tempId=eyJvaWRjX2NvbnNlbnRfbGFuZ3VhZ2VfdmVyc2lvbiI6IjIuMCIsIm9pZGNfY29uc2VudF9ncmFudGVkX2F0IjoxNjUyMTMxMTY4NDQxfQ%3D%3D
• https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-questions/Grant-unlicensed-users-access-to-a-confluence-page/qaq-p/1464936#:~:text=Go%20to%20your%20space%20settings,this%20to%20viewing%20and%20commenting.

Thanks!

[Dave Mathijs]

Hi @Won C , welcome to the Atlassian Community.

About external collaboration and guests:

Guests are only available on the Premium plan and count as licensed users. The license is actually the same — what makes a guest a guest is the systemic guest permission. It’s essentially a role.

[Won C]

Hi @Dave Mathijs , thanks so much for the response! Understood, appreciate the insight and that "guest" is just a role and not a guest in the sense of an unlicensed user. 

Would you happen to have any insight on how IP Allowlisting from the premium plan works/interacts with "Grant Anonymous Access"? For instance, if I had a page that I set to grant anonymous access, but also have IP allowlisting configured so that only certain IP addresses/ranges are permitted to reach my Confluence site, does that extend to any pages that I've granted anonymous access to? 

• Page A is set to grant anonymous access so it is Internet-accessible
• IP allowlisting is configured so that only 2.2.2.2 and 3.3.3.3 are permitted to access content on Confluence
• Person Z is connecting from 1.1.1.1 -> would access to Page A be permitted? 

I've checked the following documentation page and there isn't any explicit details on how IP Allowlisting interacts with the anonymous access element when in effect on the same page. Any insight you, or anyone else from the Community, might be able to provide would be extremely appreciated!

• https://support.atlassian.com/security-and-access-policies/docs/specify-ip-addresses-for-product-access/

Thank you!

[Dave Mathijs]

IP allowlisting happens on product access level, not on page level.

[Won C]

Great, thanks very much for the clarification!