read only to unlicensed users
Asked by Vinod Paniker:

*This question is in reference to Atlassian Documentation: [Permissions and Restrictions](https://confluence.atlassian.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=724765432)*

I have about 4-5 users who create content for our wiki, but about 90 users who need access to the generated content. All the users are within my organization. Can I give all the 90 users access without buying a license? (will buy license only for the 5 users who needs read and write permissions?)


Answers:
author: Jason Grovert
body: Yes.

License JIRA Service Desk (only licenses are needed for Agents - you could probably even only have one license), then create a JIRA Service Desk Project for each Confluence Space you want to give access to.

In the Project Settings / Knowledge Base for each Service Desk Project, select the "Everyone with access to your service desk can read articles without a Confluence license. This option is best if you want to share knowledge base articles with your customers." option.

Now unlicensed Confluence users (even though they're logged in to their own accounts) can view Confluence articles in Confluence.

comments: author: felix.weber
body: In the Project Settings \> Knowledge Base you can link the appropriate confluence space.

When you select "Link space" you will need to enter/select the appropriate confluence space

![ConfluenceWithoutlicence.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/133175i8E5D55603F124C1D/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "ConfluenceWithoutlicence.png")

When you select "Link space" you will need to enter/select the appropriate confluence space (not shown)

As the final step you will need to select the permission to be restricted

![ConfluenceWithoutLicence_SelectePermission.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/133179iA8881CC1718D56C0/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "ConfluenceWithoutLicence_SelectePermission.png")


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: No. If they can log in, then they need a licence, even if the account can only read stuff.

But, you can allow "anonymous" access to spaces. People will be able to read such spaces without logging in at all, so they won't take up a licence.

comments: author: Vinod Paniker
body: Thanks for the quick response. Unfortunately that won't work for me, as these are company internal documents. Maybe I should switch to a on premise server version vs hosted, then I can control anonymous visitors!


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: Yes, that would let you use your company firewall to block it off from the internet. It's a popular model to have a Confluence internally available to all, with only a handful of authors, and the outside world not able to see it at all.


author: Bill Bailey
body: Well if all your users are authenticated elsewhere on the network and your server is behind a firewall, then just set up Confluence to allow anonymous users. Then you can do what you want.


author: J. Caldwell
body: Yeah. Or if you want your company to be able to get to it on the public internet, set it up externally facing, but have some sort of authentication challenge that once they pass it, they can get to that internal site.


author: Alex Medved _ConfiForms_
body: He has tagged the question with "cloud" tags - so I assume that having a "firewall" is not an option at all.


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: The firewall was mentioned in response to the first follow-up question, which was about, well, installing it behind a firewall...


author: Bill Bailey
body: Yeah, I missed the cloud part. So the alternate solution would be to have one user account for general access by all those who do not need edit rights (restrict that user rights to view only), then you have 9 user slots for those who need more access. This approach will require all to log in, keep anonymous users out, and keep you within the 10 user license.

Now I have no idea whether Confluence cares how many locations are logged in via one account. I know I am often logged in from multiple locations, but no idea if there is some sort of limit.


author: Raines
body: Hi [@Bill Bailey](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/502089) i know it has been a couple of years, buts have you found out if there's a limit to be logged in on 1 user account from multiple locations?


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: Confluence doesn't care where you log in from. As long as you are not sharing the account with many people, you can log in from as many places as you want.


Tags: cloud

confluence-cloud

permission