Issue Summary

Jira Service Management (JSM) customers or users are prompted to log in when trying to view Knowledge Base articles on Confluence 9.x.x for unlicensed users.

Steps to Reproduce

• Deploy Confluence v9.2.3 or any Confluence version for 9.x.x ( v9.2.5 tested so far )
• Deploy JSM v10.3.5 or JSM 5.12.22
• Connect Confluence and JSM via application link and have Oath Impersonation ( This is important )
• In Confluence, connect the User Directory with JSM ( This is important as well so that JSM users/customers sync through Confluence but those users are not a part of any Confluence groups )
• Create a user in JSM who only has access to the JSM Project and no login to Confluence ( unlicensed user for Confluence )
• Sync the user directory in Confluence
• Create a service project in JSM
  • Link your project to a Confluence space
• Set one option at a time as mentioned below but it does makes a difference as the issue is reproducible in both the ways.

Allow only JSM user/customer to login to JSM portal or the customer portal

• Select the JSM project
• Go to the Project Settings > Customer permissions
  • Managing access to your service project
  • Under Raising requests, select only Customers who have an account on this Jira site
• Go to Project Settings > Knowledge Base
• Under Linked Spaces select 'All users and customers'

Set up login free access in JSM

• Set up login free access as shared in this KB - Setting up login-free portal access
  • Go to the Project Settings > Customer permissions and select Anyone can raise a request on the customer portal or by email
• Next, enable Option 1. All users and customers

• In a different browser or in Chrome incognito mode or Firefox Private Mode, login to JSM > Project > Customer Channels | Click on Visit the portal or directly use the customer portal link
• In the search, type the Page title of the space that has been mapped in JSM
• An Iframe open up where you should be able to view the KB without login, but in reality, we see it is asking for a Confluence login and the issue is intermittent
  • You might also need to try Firefox InPrivate mode and try to replicate the issue a few times, when suddenly the issue appears, where the JSM user is asked to log in to Confluence
• After a few URL refreshes, the KB is viewed

Expected Results

The JSM user/customer should be able to view the Confluence Page by just searching for the page in the Customer Portal

Actual Results

The JSM user/customer is intermittently experiencing being asked to log in to Confluence while the KB is searched in the customer portal.

Workaround

Option 01

One workaround is to make it mandatory to enable anonymous access on the Confluence site, and also set the specific space to have anonymous access that is linked to JSM.

If you are allowing logging free access in JSM, then it is mandatory to enable anonymous access in Confluence.

To allow your customers access your knowledge base articles login-free, you may need to enable anonymous access on your linked Confluence space.

Option 02

Another workaround is we can plan to login in once under Confluence and keep that tab open. Any subsequent request from JSM to confluence will not ask for login again.