Project for external contractor with limited access for their users

[Itay Keller]

I like to create a project in Jira -  for external contractor.

I like to create users that can access only this project for read & write.

I like the other internal jira users to also be able to read & write to this project.

Is this possible?

Also, we have Confluence integration. Do we need to do anything special to block the external users from accessing Confluence?

[Joe Pitt]

Yes, but you'll probably need to modify your permission scheme. 

First, by default JIRA has a horrible permission scheme that violates security best practices by allowing everyone that can logon to do just about everything.

JIRA works by GRANTING access. You can't restrict access. By default, it grants access to the group used to logon (see Global permissions to see the "can use" groups and admin groups).  This is where users are getting the access from.

1. The FIRST thing you need to do to get control is to remove any groups with logon privileges from the permission scheme unless you absolutely want everyone to have that permission.
2. Then I suggest you setup Project Roles for the various functions like, tester, QA, Browse Only, etc.
3. One permission scheme will cover almost all projects. The project admin controls project role membership

This may be a big effort, but it will pay off down the road by making it easy to control access.

Most of the 'old timers' use project roles. It meets the best practice for security and gives complete control to the project lead for access to their project. JIRA comes with many project roles, but you can add more if you have a special need.