OAuth/OpenID Single Sign On (SSO) into Confluence using GitLab

Confluence OAuth/OpenID app gives the ability to enable OAuth/OpenID Single Sign-On for Confluence. Confluence is compatible with all OAuth/OpenID Providers. Here we will go through a guide to configure SSO between Confluence and your OAuth/OpenID Provider. By the end of this guide, users from your OAuth/OpenID Provider should be able to log in and register to Confluence.

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Video Setup Guide

Pre-requisites

To integrate your OAuth/OpenID provider with Confluence, you need the following items:

Confluence should be installed and configured.
Confluence Server is https enabled (optional).
Admin credentials are set up in Confluence.
Valid Confluence Server and Data center Licence.

Download and Installation

Log into your Confluence instance as an admin.
Navigate to the settings menu and Click Manage Apps.
Click Find new apps or Find new add-ons from the left-hand side of the page.
Locate Confluence OAuth/OpenID Connect Single Sign On (SSO), Confluence SSO via search.
Click Try free to begin a new trial or Buy now to purchase a license for OAuth/OpenID Connect for Confluence SSO.
Enter your information and click Generate license when redirected to MyAtlassian.
Click Apply license.

Step 1: Set Up GitLab as OAuth Provider

Navigate to the plugin configuration page, click the "Add New Provider" button (located either in the middle or top-right corner), select GitLab as the application, and copy the callback URL from the plugin and keep it handy, as you'll need it to configure GitLab as the OAuth provider.

OAuth / OPenID Single Sign On (SSO) using ADFS, ADFS Management

Login to Gitlab : Go to GitLab or your on-premise GitLab Server and login to your account.
Navigate to your profile settings.

OAuth/OpenID/OIDC Single Sign On (SSO), GitLab SSO Login Setup Gitlab

Create app : Select applications in left menu.

OAuth/OpenID/OIDC Single Sign On (SSO), GitLab SSO Login Create app

Provide the required details.

Name :	This can be anything. Consider something like <Organization>'s GitLab or <Your Name>'s GitLab or something else descriptive.
Redirect URI :	Copy Callback URL from plugin.

OAuth/OpenID/OIDC Single Sign On (SSO), GitLab SSO Login Redirect URI

NOTE: The check-box for “api” needs to be checked, as it’s unchecked by default.

Get Client ID & Client Secret : Copy Application Id , Secret and Scope.

OAuth/OpenID/OIDC Single Sign On (SSO), GitLab SSO Login Get Client ID

Step 2: Set Up Confluence as OAuth Client

Go to Confluence Manage Apps -> click Configure under OAuth/OpenID Connect (OIDC) for Confluence SSO. Then click on Add New Provider button. Select GitLab as your OAuth provider.

Option to select your desired IDP from a list of IDPs

Use Application Id for Client ID, Secret for Client Secret.
Configure Scope as “api”.

Finally, click on Test Configuration to verify the accuracy of the provided details.
Additionally, you can provide the JWKS Endpoint URL or Public Key for signature validation. You can find this option under the Advanced Settings tab.

Step 3: User Profile Mapping

Click on User Profile from the left sidebar. We will be setting up user profile attributes for Confluence. If your users are stored in a directory that is Read Only, please disable the option User Profile Mapping in the User Profile tab and skip to the step, Matching a User.

3.1 Finding correct attributes

Go to the App Configuration tab. Scroll down and click on Test Configuration.
You will see all the values returned by your OAuth/OpenID Provider to Confluence in a table. If you don't see a value for First Name, Last Name, Email or Username, make the required settings in your OAuth/OpenID Provider to return this information.
Once you see all the values in Test Configuration, keep the window open and go to the User Profile tab.

3.2 Setting profile attributes

In this User Profile tab, fill the values by matching the name of the attribute. For instance, if the Attribute Name in the Test Configuration window is NameID, enter NameID against Username.
Setting up both Username and Email is required if you want to let users register. You can allow only existing users to log in, by unchecking the Allow User Creation attribute in the Advance SSO Options tab.

3.3 Matching a User

When the user logs into Confluence, one of the user's data/ attributes coming in from the OAuth/OpenID Provider is used to search the user in Confluence. This is used to detect the user in Confluence and log in the user to the same account.

Go to the User Profile tab.
Select Username or Email for Login Confluence user account by.
Enter the attribute name from OAuth/OpenID Provider which corresponds to Username or Email using Finding Correct Attributes.

3.4 Custom Attribute Mapping

The custom attributes received in the OAuth/OpenID response can be configured using the Configure User Properties(Extended Attributes) section.
Click Add Attribute Mapping.
Enter the attribute name (E.g. department) as User Property Key in the Select Confluence Attribute to Map field.
Corresponding to this key, fill the attribute value you receive from the Test Configuration window into Attributes from IDP tab. For instance, if the Attribute Name in the Test Configuration window is Department, enter Department as the Attribute Value.
Another attribute e.g. location can be added by clicking on Add Attribute Mapping option.

Step 4: User Group Mapping

We will be setting up user group attributes for Confluence. If you want to enable group mapping then you will need to select please check Eisable Group Mapping in the User Groups tab else you can skip to Setting default group.

4.1 Setting default group

Select the users' Default Group in the tab User Groups. If no group is mapped, users are added by default to this group.
You can enable default groups for All Users or New Users using the option Assign Default Group To. Select None if you don't want to assign any default group to SSO users.

Atlassian Data Center Single Sign-On (SSO) for OAuth User Groups

4.2 Finding Group Attribute

Just like we found Attribute Name for User Profile attributes, we can find group attributes. Go to the App Configuration tab and click on Test Configuration.
You will see all the values returned by your OAuth/OpenID Provider to Confluence in a table. If you don't see value with groups, make the required settings in your OAuth Provider to return group names.
Once you see all the values in Test Configuration, keep the window open and go to the User Groups tab.
Enter the Attribute Name of the group against Group Attribute.
Check Disable Group Mapping option if you don't want to update groups of existing users.

4.3 Group Mapping

Group mapping can be done manually or on the fly:

Manual group mapping: If the names of groups in Confluence are different from the corresponding groups in OAuth/OpenID Provider, then you should use Manual group mapping.
On-The-Fly group mapping: If the names of groups in Confluence and OAuth/OpenID Provider are the same, you should use On-The-Fly group mapping.

I. Manual Group Mapping

Check Allow User Creation based on Group Mapping option if you want new users to be created only if at least one of the user's OAuth/OpenID Provider groups is mapped to a group in the application.
For mapping, first select a Confluence group from the dropdown which lists all groups present in Confluence and then enter the name of the OAuth/OpenID Provider group to be mapped in the textbox Groups from Application.
For example, if you want all users in 'dev' group of OAuth/OpenID Provider to be added to Confluence-software-users, you will need to select Confluence-software-users from the dropdown and enter 'dev' against Confluence-software-users.
Use '+' and '+10' buttons to add extra mapping fields. Use the '-' button next to each mapping to delete that mapping.

Atlassian Data Center Single Sign-On (SSO) for OAuth Manual Group Mapping

II. On-The Fly Group Mapping

Check Create New Groups option if you want new groups from OAuth/OpenID Provider to be created if not found in Confluence.
You can preserve existing user groups by selecting the Keep Existing User Groups option. Unticking this option will result in the user being removed from a group in Confluence if that group is not present in the OAuth/OpenID response returned by the OAuth/OpenID provider.
If you don't want On-The-Fly group mapping to affect Confluence groups which are managed locally, then deselect the option Keep Existing User Groups and add those groups in the Exclude Groups field.

Atlassian Data Center Single Sign-On (SSO) for OAuth On The Fly Group Mapping

Step 5: Advanced SSO Configurations

Enable PKCE to enhance security by adding an extra layer of protection to the OAuth flow, preventing authorization code interception attacks.
Allow User Creation: Enabling this will allow you to create new users through SSO.
Directory for New User: After a successful SSO, if the user is not found in Confluence, a new user account will be created in the selected user directory.
Remote Directory Sync: The user details will be synced from the remote directory on successful SSO only if the user exists in the remote directory.

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ACR Value: Requests additional information from the OpenID provider to determine the Level of Assurance for user authentication.
State Parameter: Protects against CSRF attacks by sending a unique, non-guessable value with the authorization request, mandatory for certain providers.
Add Custom Parameters: Allows the inclusion of extra parameters in the authentication request.

Public Key: Used in asymmetric cryptography to decrypt signed tokens, verifying the identity of the OpenID provider and ensuring the tokens remain unchanged.
JWKS Endpoint URL: Provides public keys used to validate JSON Web Tokens (JWT) issued by the authorization server for user authentication.

Step 6: SSO Setting

The settings in the SSO Settings tab define the user experience for Single Sign On.

6.1 Sign In Settings

Return URL: Enter the absolute URL where you want to redirect the user after SSO. Keep empty to redirect users to the same URL they started with.
You can use Domain Restriction to allow login for specific user domains and configure multiple allowed domains (semicolon-separated).
For example, if only 'miniorange.com' and 'gmail.com' domains are allowed then, the user test@miniorange.com and test@gmail.com will be able to log in and user test@yahoo.com will not be able to log in.
No / Skip SSO: SSO will be bypassed for the specified URL patterns. For example, to disable SSO for http://localhost:8080/servlet/applinks, simply enter /applinks in the URL pattern field.

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Enable Auto Redirect to Application feature to redirect users to an OAuth/OIDC provider when the Confluence login page is accessed. You can even set the delay before redirecting to the provider.
Enable Backdoor Login will allow you to use a backdoor URL in case of an emergency. You can even restrict access to backdoor URL for specific groups using Restrict Backdoor URL Access feature.
You can customize the Backdoor URL by clicking on the edit button beside it and entering new parameter values.

Atlassian Data Center Single Sign-On (SSO) for OAuth Sign In Settings

Secure Admin Login Option will ensure reauthentication of admin user before accessing the pages with administrative permissions.
Secure Admin Login Option can be enabled to ensure the admins will also log in via SSO.

6.2 Redirection Rules

This section lets you set rules to redirect users to the login page/providers based on their email domains. This feature is more useful in case you have multiple providers configured. For example, You can set a rule of checking domain name while logging in and redirect users to different providers. You can add a rule by clicking on the Add Rule button.

Atlassian Data Center Single Sign-On (SSO) for OAuth Select Provider Add Rule

When a rule such as given above is configured example, a login form will be displayed to the users where they will have to input their Username/email address.
Here you can set domain-based rules for redirecting users to the specific provider. Also, you can set the default rule that will execute if the condition of any other rule does not satisfy.

Atlassian Data Center Single Sign-On (SSO) for OAuth Redirection Rules

6.3 Session Management

Enable User Session Management option to set Remember Me-Cookie to keep users logged in until they are explicitly logged out.

6.4 Look and Feel

These settings will allow you to change the look and feel of the login page and error message. To access these settings click on the Look and Feel tab from the left sidebar.

You can customize the default login button text as well as you can completely design the login page using a customizable template.
You can also have a custom login page and template for customer portal.

Atlassian Data Center Single Sign-On (SSO) for OAuth Select Provider Look and Feel

The SSO Error Message section allows you to modify how error messages will be displayed to your users.

Look and Feel tab with provision for customizing the error messages

6.5 Post Logout Configurations

To access these settings click on the Post Logout Configurations tab from the left sidebar.

If you want to redirect users to an URL after they log out then you can use Custom Logout URL under Post Logout Configuration tab.
Similar to the customizable login template, you can also design the Logout page to improve the user experience.

6.6 Global SSO Settings

SSO can be enabled/disabled from the Global SSO Settings tab in the left sidebar. You can enable SSO for Confluence software and service desk using options Enable SSO for Confluence Software and Enable SSO for Confluence Service Desk.
If you want to enforce SSO to the Service Desk Agents only then you can select the Enable SSO Only For ServiceDesk Agents option.
You can change additional settings as Allow Users to Change Password, Restrict access to plugin APIs and Auto Activate Users on SSO.
You can enable Set Remember Me-Cookie in the Session Management tab to keep users logged in until they are explicitly logged out.

Atlassian Data Center Single Sign-On (SSO) for OAuth Select Provider Global SSO Settings

Configure SCIM with OAuth

Configure SCIM with OAuth for your choosen IDP by following the step by step guide linked here.

Step 3: User Profile Mapping

Navigate to the User Profile section at the top to configure user profile attributes for Confluence. If your user directory is read-only, disable the User Profile Mapping option in this tab and then proceed directly to the “Matching a User” step.

Click on Test Configuration.

User Attribute Matching

When a user logs into Confluence, data or attributes from the OAuth/OpenID provider are used to search for that user in Confluence and facilitate login. To match the attributes:

Navigate to the User Profile tab.
Choose either Username or Email as the login for the Confluence user account.
Enter the attribute name from the OAuth/OpenID Provider that corresponds to the Username or Email as identified in the Identifying Correct Attributes step.

Extended Attribute Mapping

You can configure additional user attributes received in the OAuth/OpenID response using the Configure User Properties (Extended Attributes) section.

In the left dropdown, select the Confluence attribute you want to map as User Property Key (for example: Phone, Location).
In the right field, input the corresponding value retrieved from the Attributes from Provider in the Test Configuration window.
For example, to map user location: select Location on the left dropdown and enter the provider attribute name that returns the user’s location on the right.
Click Add Attribute Mapping again to create additional mappings.

Step 4: User Group Mapping

As we proceed to configure user group attributes for Confluence, you have the option to enable group mapping.

If you wish to do so, please ensure to select Enable Group Mapping in the User Groups tab. Alternatively, you can proceed directly to setting the default group.

4.1 Setting the Default Group

In the User Groups tab, select the default group for users. If no group is mapped, users are automatically added to this group.
Using the Assign Default Group To option, you can assign default groups to all users or new users. Choose None if you prefer not to assign any default group to SSO users.

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