Linking Jira Service Desk to a Confluence Knowledge Base with different user bases

[Andrew Culver]

The Guide to link Knowledge Base to JIRA Service Desk for unlicensed user says

JIRA Service Desk has introduced a new feature starting JIRA ServiceDesk v3.1 where there is no need for users to have a license in Confluence to be able to access the Confluence Knowledge Base through Service Desk.

However the instructions then say 2 paragraphs later

This feature was originally built for the Cloud environment which has a shared user base directory. If you are running server versions of JIRA Service Desk & Confluence, you will need to make sure that your user base for both applications is the same

Our Jira instance gets users from our LDAP directory with Copy-on-first-login enabled.

Our Confluence instances gets users from AD (I believe, based on groups).

While the usernames are the same for any given user, there will be some users in Jira who are not in Confluence, and some users in Confluence who are not in Jira.

The guide then explains that if the Jira Service Desk user is not in Confluence, then it must be manually created.

Could we not just allow anonymous Public Access to Confluence and make our KB space accessible to anonymous users? https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/setting-up-public-access-156.html

Would this allow Service Desk customers to access our KB through Jira Service Desk? Or does that KB linking in Service Desk require that the SD customer also be a user in Confluence?

[Kian Stack Mumo Systems · Accepted solution]

If you have no content you want to keep secure in that knowledge base, opening up Confluence to anonymous users would work. 

It's important to keep in mind that the system first needs to be opened to anonymous users at a global level. Make sure you lock down any spaces you don't want anonymous users to have read access to. 

[Andrew Culver]

Thanks! The KB space would be a new space with the purpose of being a public knowledge base.

We recognize that we'll need to review the permissions of all our others projects before allowing anonymous users at the global level.

[Marc Jason Mutuc]

Did you get your KB to work? Our KB just keep showing server's IP address is not found. Access to JIRA is via VPN (secured office connection) but Service Desk can be access with any internet connection. Any tips?

[Andrew Culver]

I suggest contacting Atlassian support.

[Melanie Schneider]

@Marc Jason Mutuc Could you solve your problem? I have the same setup and problem (Jira/Confluence access via VPN, Service Desk accessable via internet, KB shows IP address not found).