Renamed users after switching user directories in Crowd and lost access to pages in Confluence
Asked by Petr Van??ek:

Hello,

in last few months we start working on using AD in our Crowd as primary directory.   

But one thing wasn't easy - it was our user base in Atlassian apps, because approx. 25 percent of our users has as username non-AD email (another domain).

Switching of other users with AD domain has been without any problems and it works well more than one month already.

But last week we switched also other users.

We did it in this way:

1. rename user in Crowd internal user directory
2. Sync it in Jira for being sure with renaming of user
3. Add required groups in AD and sync it with Crowd so user with same username as existing one appeared in Crowd, added same groups to this AD user as to user in internal directory
4. Sync with Jira and perform a tests

So we don't do all sync steps with Confluence and now we have some pages in one or more spaces where nobody have acccess and we can't recover permissions for those pages (I know it's bad practise dedicate permissions for users on pages instead of groups - it's a "monument" of previous Atlassian admin in our company).   

Is there any way how I can get all pages across all Spaces with restricted permissions? And a way how can I change restrictions on pages globally?  

Thanks for your ideas or help.  

Best regards

Petr


Answers:
author: AnnWorley
body: Hi Petr,

Thanks for the background and details of your question. I am not sure whether you are facing page restriction, space permission or global permission issues. The approaches to viewing and changing these are different. Please see [Permissions and restrictions](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/permissions-and-restrictions-139557.html) and then circle back and let us know which type of access we can help with.

Just to reassure you, admins can access all pages whether they are restricted or not, by changing the restrictions or permissions that are limiting the access.

On a less pleasant note, there isn't a way to view all page restrictions for an entire instance in one place. [Page restrictions](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/page-restrictions-139414.html) can be viewed at the space level:
> Space Admin and System Administrator access to restricted pages   
> Users with 'Admin' permissions in a space, or users with the System Administrator global permission can remove restrictions from pages, even if the page restriction prevents them from viewing the page. Go to Space Administration \> Restricted Pages.

Space permissions can be viewed globally: [Manage and recover space admin permissions](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/assign-space-permissions-139460.html#AssignSpacePermissions-managepermManageandrecoverspaceadminpermissions)
> To recover Space Admin permissions:
>
> Go to \> General Configuration \> Space Permissions.
>
> Locate the space in the Individual Spaces list and choose Recover Permissions.  
> You can then choose Manage Permissions, and add any other appropriate permissions to the space. Requests to recover permissions are recorded in the Confluence audit log.

Thanks,

Ann

comments: author: Petr Van??ek
body: I mean page restrictions.  

I found only one solution for this and it's export Space and import it to Demo instance. There I can delete restrictions (on the production not, it show me "You don't have access on this page" or something similar). Then I can make export on Demo, delete original on Production and import it on Production.


author: AnnWorley
body: Hi Petr,

Page restrictions should be changeable by space admins and system administrators in the browser without exporting the space: [Page restrictions](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/page-restrictions-139414.html)
>
> Users with 'Admin' permissions in a space, or users with the System Administrator global permission can remove restrictions from pages, even if the page restriction prevents them from viewing the page.

If you are getting an error message when you go to Space Tools \> Restricted Pages it is likely you need Space Admin [permission at the space level](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/space-permissions-overview-139521.html) or System Administrator [global permission](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/global-permissions-overview-138709.html).

Thanks,

Ann


author: Petr Van??ek
body: Sorry for late reply.  

Of course I'm a System Administrator and our System Administrator group is also as Space admins.  

But now I stuck with "my solution" with one large Space. I export it from PROD, then import it to DEMO and delete all restrictions in Restricted Pages. The I export it again from this environment and import it to PROD.  

But now I'm Space Admin (and System Administrator) and Restricted Pages part of Space administration is now empty. But I still can't access pages and Space Homepage. When I click on Request Access button then it show me this below.  

"  
**Access request unsuccessful** Your request for access has not been sent. Contact your space admin.  
"   

But very interesting this is I can search whole content by searching in Confluence, with excerpts of pages but without access to pages.  
I'm working with Confluence for 3 years but it's for first time when I stuck with something like this.  

Do you have any idea, please?  

Thanks


author: AnnWorley
body: Hi Petr,

A space admin should be able to view and change any page restrictions in the space. To rule out inherited permission caching as the issue, please try: [Rebuilding the Ancestor Table](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/rebuilding-the-ancestor-table-153948.html)

Note: This process takes about ten minutes for an average size site, and you may not be able to save new content during this time. We recommend you take a full backup of your database and complete this process during a maintenance window.

Thanks,

Ann


author: Petr Van??ek
body: Hi Ann,  

Unfortunately I can't change nothing. There are not any restrictions or permissions which can affect my access into pages in Space. I delete all restricted permissions in Restricted pages in Demo environment and imported it on PROD. And after rebuilding of ancestor table it's still same (it's take around 5 seconds only).  

Do you have any other idea, please? Fortunately it's little bit older and not so much used Space, so if we will not solve this we can use this Space on Demo instance where it is working. So it's nothing critical, but...  

Maybe can be there some problem related to Data Center edition when Demo is Server and on Server is it working correctly? It's look really strange when I can search content of pages in Space, but not access it.  

Thanks  
Petr


author: AnnWorley
body: Hi Petr,

I understand the issue persisted after rebuilding the ancestor table, and that the source (demo instance) of the space import was standalone and the destination was Data Center edition.

So that we can take a closer look, I opened a support request on your behalf. Please mention me in this thread if you don't get the email from our portal shortly.

Thanks,

Ann


author: Santhosh Vegolam
body: Hi Ann

Good evening,

Here my query is little bit similar to above in my confluence production version is 5.10.9 under General Configurations User directories when automatically synchronization is performed by system in LDAP as per LDAP settings .But After some time some particular users means like 92 users are not found or some users details with some other names updated like Kavala babu as Frank zara (or) some users trying to login showing as no user found error like that

So for this problem we temporary fix this as solution we are doing manual synchronization whenever daily this issue happens i seen in audit log whenever it happen like below

Example in auditlog: 3 Aug, 2018 04:30:37 System Users and groups User details updated User: xxxxxx Show more 3 Aug, 2018 04:30:37 System Users and groups User renamed User: xxxxxxx Show more Thanks

please provide the solution for this issue to fix permanently

Thanks

santhosh


Tags: crowd

user-management