What happens to local copies of users if we add ldap directory?

[Mike C]

We've been using Confluence for a couple years now. In that time we have added all our users manually in Confluence, but, new we would like to integrate Confluence with Active Directory. Will it recognize the users that have been added manually in confluence as duplicates and merge them with the Active Directory users? Or will there be duplicates of the users we've already added manually?

[Mikael Sandberg · Accepted solution]

Hi @Mike C,

Welcome to Atlassian Community.

If your usernames are the same in the internal user directory as in the LDAP all the permissions will be kept. No merge will happen, if you look in the database you will see duplicate entries, but they are referencing the two different user directories. 

[Mike C]

Hi Mikael, thanks for responding. Also, do you mean that the LDAP user will have the same permissions as the internal user if the user names are the same?

[Mike C]

Oh and if they are the same, how does it know which user (internal or ldap) is login in. Is it determined by the order the directory is listed. So if LDAP was at the top of the directory list it would be the LDAP user?

[Mikael Sandberg]

What I meant was that if you have a user in your internal user directory that also will be imported by the LDAP directory, if you switch the order to the directories so LDAP is above, that user will keep his/her permissions.

Example: My username in the internal directory is msandb, and if I add a new user directory where my username is the same, I will keep my permissions. If my username in the LDAP directory is mikael instead of msandb, Confluence will see me as a new user if I log in as mikael.

[Mikael Sandberg]

It is the order of your user directories that controls which one you authenticate against. It goes from top to bottom, and once your username is found Confluence will not search any of the other user directories.

[Mike C]

Thank you!