How to check if Confluence is accessible from the internet

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

Summary

When deploying a Confluence instance on a server, the user might want to check if Confluence can be accessed from the internet. 

Environment

Confluence Server or Data Center

Solution

Confluence lacks any feature that indicates if the instance is connected to the internet, so it's necessary to review the network configuration of the Confluence server/cluster.

On the Confluence server/cluster

Confluence runs on Apache Tomcat and its settings are defined in the <confluence-install>/conf/server.xml file.

In that file, you can find the connectors set for Confluence. By default, it will use ports 8090 to access the instance and 8091 for the Synchrony process used by the Collaborative Editing feature. If using these ports, they would need to be open in the firewall of the Confluence server.

Reverse Proxy/Load Balancer

The connectivity to the internet is defined by the network configuration of your environment. The instance may be running behind a Reverse Proxy or Load Balancer, for example.

For such cases, the communication with Confluence will occur through the Reverse Proxy/Load Balancer application and the network configuration that routes traffic to that application will determine if Confluence can be accessed from the internet or only the intranet.

The documentation we have on Reverse Proxy setup:

Atlassian applications allow the use of reverse-proxies within our products, however Atlassian Support does not provide assistance for configuring them. Consequently, Atlassian can not guarantee providing any support for them.

Testing the access

To check if Confluence is accessible from the Internet, try accessing its Base URL from a client browser that is not connected to the same network as Confluence. If someone using a different network can reach the Confluence login page, then Confluence is accessible through the Internet.

In case of network or connectivity issues, please refer to our documentation: Network and Connectivity Troubleshooting Guide.

Updated on February 28, 2025

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