Can a single email server be used for multiple Jira environments?

[Travis Alexander [Empyra]]

I understand it's not ideal, but does anybody know the implications of utilizing a single email server for inbound/outbound emails on two separate Jira environments. Wouldn't each Jira know how to properly scrub for appropriate emails relating to its environment? 

[Petter Gonçalves · Accepted solution]

Hello Travis,

Thank you for reaching out.

The using of a common e-mail address for the e-mail handlers of two different instances might work or not based on handlers you will be adding to your instances. Allow me to bring you more concepts about this:

1 - The creating of issues using the e-mail handler is simply defined by the e-mail address defined for the instances.

So let's suppose you configured the e-mail address "Jira@atlassian.com" in both instances. If you send an e-mail to "Jira@atlassian.com", it will create a new ticket in both Jira Instances, unless you configure a catch e-mail address in the handlers.

2 - The comment of issues using the e-mail handler require you to add the subject of the e-mail with the issue key of the issue that will be added with the comment.

That being said, If you configure an e-mail handler only to comment on issues in both instances, it must properly work as long as you don't have issues with the same issue key in both instances. 

As you said, it is not the ideal way to configure your Jira instances, so I'm wondering what is the scenario you are looking for, so we could provide you with any other options/details.

Additionally, you can take a look at the documentation below to know more details about the e-mail handlers in Jira:

Creating issues and comments from email 

Let us know if you have any questions.

[nojansen]

Has anyone tried this using an IMAP mail box? Did it work? 

In my case I can setup the mail handlers correctly on the different sites, I'm just not sure how Jira checks the incoming mails?

For example, if a user sends an email to jira@me.com, if site1 sees the new email first and "reads" it, would site2 still read the email even though it has already been "read" by site2?

[Travis Alexander [Empyra]]

The issue is, at NASA email boxes do not use password authentication and therefore cannot be used/connected with Jira, as we do not have a password to be provided. We do, however, have a single older mailbox that we have a password for, and therefore we're forced to share this on more than one Jira environment.