Authenticating with Confluence

This article is a resource where you learn about authenticating with Confluence.
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The following authentication methods are currently supported:

  • cookie-based authentication
  • personal access token authentication (Confluence 7.9 and later)

With this authentication method WikiTraccs uses the context of a logged-in user account.

To authenticate with Confluence WikiTraccs will open a Chrome browser window.

Log in to Confluence like you normally would. WikiTraccs will use the cookies from the authenticted browser session to access Confluence.

The following diagram shows how WikiTraccs uses cookies to make authenticated calls to Confluence:

Experimental alternative to obtain cookies (compatible with Kerberos)

When WikiTraccs is unable to make authenticated calls to Confluence and all troubleshooting fails, you might try an experimental option introduced in release 1.10.16.

This changes the flow like this:

All requests to Confluence are routed through the browser, in the context of the authenticated user session.

This mode can be activated in WikiTraccs.GUI via Settings > Misc > Proxy Confluence API calls through browser.

Personal Access Token

Note: this option is available as of WikiTraccs v1.13 and works with Confluence 7.9 and later.

Refer to Atlassian’s documentation on how to create a personal access token: Using Personal Access Tokens.

Required permissions in Confluence

The permissions of the Confluence account you log in with determine what can be migrated.

The easiest approach is to log in with a Confluence admin account that has access to all spaces that should be migrated. This allows for content and permission migration.

But maybe you don’t want to use a Confluence admin account. In this case you can also use an account that is space admin in all to-be-migrated spaces. This allows for content and permission migration of those spaces.

The least permissive approach is to use an account that is no admin whatsoever but has normal user permissions like view and edit. This allows for migration of content this account has access to, which might not be all pages. Permission migration is not possible with a non-admin user account.

Certain operations like retrieving user account information or group memberships might be prohibited for non-admin users which might hinder WikiTraccs. If you see such errors in the log try using an account that has more permissions.

Last modified February 28, 2024