Connecting Jira Data Center and Slack

[nebbs]

Hi everyone, 

I got  request to connect Jira Data Center with Slack. I thought it would be pretty straightforward, but it turns out it's not. I would like to setup a project to send various notifications to Slack groups, but Slack users would not be able to send anything back to Jira. So my questions are as follows: 

- is there a way to connect Jira and Slack if Jira is behind a firewall and there is no option to add the Slack AWS IPs to allowlist? (note: described in this article under Network Connectivity: https://thejiraguy.com/2022/03/23/integrating-jira-to-slack/ )

- if I install Jira Server app can I connect them pain free? 

- has anyone had any security issues when connected with Slack in any way? Let's say someone tries to hack Jira via Slack? Maybe this is crazy but I'd like to know

Thank you in advance. :) 

[Daniel Eads · Accepted solution]

Hi @nebbs ,

Using the officially-provided Slack integration, you can still connect Jira to Slack even if it is behind a firewall. This will wind up working out as a one-way integration, notifications will flow from Jira to Slack, but folks won't be able to take any action from within Slack to modify Jira data. This is called out in the top of the documentation for the app:

Slack requires that the Jira instance is accessible through the internet via a secure connection (HTTPS). Therefore, you need to open up your secure port and make sure that the server has a valid certificate.

If that's not an option for you, you are still able to setup a limited connection with Slack by creating a custom Slack app that will give you notifications from Jira to Slack. See how to create an app below in this page.

And here's a direct link to the setup instructions for the process to set up the integration behind a firewall. It is a bit more involved than just installing the app in Jira, as you'll need to follow the steps provided to create a custom app within Slack as well.

From a security standpoint, there's essentially no risk in setting it up behind the firewall. Jira can access Slack's API to see what channels are available to drop notifications into (and then send those notifications), but Slack is entirely unable to access Jira in this configuration.

Cheers,
Daniel

[nebbs]

Hi @Daniel Eads , thanks for your answer, but I have one more question. I tried the first option you mentioned but through Jira Cloud. I couldn't find how to block Slack from opening issues in Jira, and I found one post that says it can't be done (block Slack from opening Jira issues): 

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Software-questions/Disallow-JIRA-issues-created-from-Slack/qaq-p/1974133 

If I create an app this should be different, right?