Asked to authenticate when switching between Confluence and JIRA

Platform Notice: Data Center Only - This article only applies to Atlassian products on the Data Center platform.

Note that this KB was created for the Data Center version of the product. Data Center KBs for non-Data-Center-specific features may also work for Server versions of the product, however they have not been tested. Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.

*Except Fisheye and Crucible

Problem

A user is being prompted to log in when they try to switch between/use Confluence and JIRA at the same time within the same browser.

The user will see this screen in Confluence after they have accessed JIRA. This will appear when they try to access anything inside Confluence.

(Auto-migrated image: description temporarily unavailable)

The user will see this screen in JIRA after they have accessed Confluence. This will appear when they try to access anything inside JIRA

(Auto-migrated image: description temporarily unavailable)

Cause

This occurs when the cookies for both products are the same. By design, cookies do not differentiate on the port number. When someone uses the Confluence url and then the Jira url, they are using the same cookie but connecting to a different site, prompting them to log back in.

Resolution

After completing these steps some application links or Jira user directories will need to be reconfigured to include the context path.

We can address this issue by editing the server.xml files for both Confluence and JIRA. If we alter the url, by adding a context path to them, they will have separate cookies and should not cause the authentication window to show.

  • Navigate to the Confluence install folder

  • Open the ‘conf’ folder

  • Open the file named ‘server.xml.’

  • In that file, find the section with 'Context path' that will have = " " following it.

  • Add

    1 /confluence

    between the “ " and save.

  • Navigate to the JIRA install folder

  • Open the 'conf' folder

  • Open the file named 'server.xml.'

  • In that file, find the section with 'Context path' that will have = " " following it.

  • Add

    1 /jira

    between the " " and save.

The users will now need to access Confluence through:

1 http://(youraddress.com):8090/confluence

For JIRA, the users will use:

1 http://(youradddress.com):8080/jira
Updated on April 8, 2025

Still need help?

The Atlassian Community is here for you.