How to regenerate External id in crowd application
Asked by Peruma Chinnasamy:

Hi team,

I would like to know How to regenerate External id for users in crowd application.

If anybody know the steps or document for that Kindly share to me.

Thanks and Regards

Peruma.C


Answers:
author: Roman Kovalov
body: Maybe you will find your answer in [this guide](https://confluence.atlassian.com/confkb/how-can-i-tell-which-ldap-attribute-is-linked-to-the-external_id-field-in-confluence-cwd_user-table-950276476.html)

comments: author: Roman Kovalov
body: Also I can recommend you if you use Connector type of directory try to synchronise directory. It should help


author: Roman Kovalov
body: I can't find what is **external_id** in the spec, but as I know, it's the field by which you tell Crowd, that your user_A (from Crowd) is linked to one of your users from directory.   
Description from the Crowd: *"* *The attribute field to use for tracking user identity across user renames* *"* . So for example, if you rename your user, Crowd will find your user by this field.  
And better to use unique identifier, for example in LDAP it's **uid** field, and for AD - **entryUUID**field


author: Roman Kovalov
body: Hi [@Peruma Chinnasamy](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4879891) and welcome to the community.

Can you please describe your problem more clearly? How I can achieve your state? What version of Crowd do you use? And what exactly going wrong with your external id?

comments: author: Peruma Chinnasamy
body: Hi Roman,

I was upgraded crowd v 3.7 into 4.4.0 version in non prod crowd application. In 4.4.0 version few old user facing login issue. Those who are having the external id \>32 characters. So we are planning to regenerate the external id those who are having external id \>32 characters to avoid login issue.

Thanks and Regards

Peruma.C


author: Roman Kovalov
body: Which type of directory do you have?


author: Peruma Chinnasamy
body: We have LL AD and LL EXT directory.


author: Roman Kovalov
body: When you adding a directory, you can select one of it type from this fields:  
![Screenshot 2022-06-07 at 14.02.42.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/200886i2362D143A7A5AEBD/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screenshot 2022-06-07 at 14.02.42.png")


author: Roman Kovalov
body: Also you can check it type from DB: **cwd_directory** table, **directory_type** field


author: Peruma Chinnasamy
body: The directory type is "Delegated Authentication"


author: Roman Kovalov
body: Ok, great! So that should be easier:)

You can delete user_A from Crowd (better to do it from UI). It will not affect your user from directory.  
And after you login to application with user_A it should appear in Crowd and have correct external_id.


author: Peruma Chinnasamy
body: Hi Roman,

Thank you for your valuable input.

I would like to mention few thing here.

More than 10 thousand user will face this login issue after prod crowd 4.4.0 version.

So I need fix before upgrading prod crowd. Any other fix is there doing bulk external Id regeneration.

Thanks and Regards

Peruma.C


author: Roman Kovalov
body: Ok, so one of possible solutions is to re-add directory.  
Or try to use connector type of directory, which will help to resolve issues like this with synchronization feature (unfortunately there is no synchronization in Delegated).

Hope that will resolve the issue.  
Roman.