Why can't JIRA create users when using Crowd, yet Bamboo and Fisheye both can?

[Scott Goodwin]

I'm running Jira 5.0.1 and Crowd 2.4.0. Fisheye, Jira, and Bamboo are all hooked in to Crowd as our external user authentication service. In Bamboo and Fisheye, I can create new users, and they will propogate to Crowd. In Jira, however, the "Create User" button is gone. I can manually enter the adduser url of http://<jira.server>/secure/admin/user/AddUser!default.jspa and be presented with the dialog, but entering anything results in an error about the directory being read only.

OK, so that's fine as far as Jira is concerned, but why the heck are Bamboo and Fisheye able to add new users without any issue?

Honestly, the Crowd interface is clunky to work with when creating new users, and I'd prefer to use Jira's.

In Jira, my Directory Configuration summary shows: Allowed operations: [UPDATE_USER_ATTRIBUTE, UPDATE_GROUP_ATTRIBUTE]. Is it as simple as just updating these attributes somehow?

One conflicting piece of info is the first line in the description of CWD-2759:

"When using Crowd, Confluence, and JIRA, you can add users to Crowd directly from either JIRA or Confluence. However, when the user is added in one application, they are not visible to the other application until a sync job is run."

This implies that you CAN create new users from Jira when you are connected to Crowd.

So which is it?

Thanks!!

[Penny Wyatt (On Leave to July 2021) · Accepted solution]

Please forgive me if you've already checked this, but is the user directory set to Read/Write?

1) From any JIRA screen, type "gg" to bring up the admin quicksearch.

2) Type "User Directories" (or part thereof) and press enter.

3) Edit the Crowd directory configuration and check that it's set to Read/Write.

In my test instance, with it set to Read/Write, I have the following allowed operations:

Allowed operations: [UPDATE_GROUP, DELETE_ROLE, CREATE_ROLE, DELETE_GROUP, UPDATE_ROLE, UPDATE_USER_ATTRIBUTE, DELETE_USER, UPDATE_USER, UPDATE_ROLE_ATTRIBUTE, CREATE_GROUP, UPDATE_GROUP_ATTRIBUTE, CREATE_USER]

[Penny Wyatt (On Leave to July 2021)]

On further investigation, turns out that the permission can be restricted from the Crowd side too:

1) Log in to Crowd

2) Go to Applications and pick your JIRA application

3) Click Permissions, then the specific directory in use, and check the "Add User" checkbox is ticked there too.

[Scott Goodwin]

Sorry for my delayed reply.

So yes, I checked the allowed operations on the Jira side, and they are only [UPDATE_USER_ATTRIBUTE, UPDATE_GROUP_ATTRIBUTE]. I am nearly 100% certain that I set it up as Read/Write when I first set up Crowd as the User Directoy in Jira, but for whatever reason, it seems not to be that way now. Also, it does not give me the option to edit the configuration. Maybe I need to recreate the connection again?

[EDIT]. OK, forget everything I said above. I was just double checking about how the heck to edit the User Directory config in Jira, since there was no "Edit" option (just "Test" and "Synchronize"). Turns out, I need to "Test", then "Edit", then "Test", then "Save".

I feel like that wasn't very obvious, and perhaps the UI should be updated in some way... perhaps an Edit button on the first screen (instead of just Test and Synchronize), that then leads you through the steps of Testing before saving the config?

At any rate, now I know, and it looks like I'm all set! Thanks!

--scott