Atlassian SAML SSO SP Setup

If you plan on customizing your IDP setup from the get go, you can find the metadata in the SP Metadata. Here you will find your SP's metadata. You will need to provide this metadata to your IDP. There are multiple ways to add this metadata to your IDP :

 Import the metadata

Depending on how your IDP accepts the metadata, you can either provide the metadata URL or you can use the Download Metadata button to download an XML file for the same.

  Manually add the metadata

If you wish to add the metadata manually,you will find the following information in this section. These details will need to be provided to your IDP.

• SP Entity ID
• ACS URL
• SP Certificate

The custom setup flow allows you to dive into the complete set of configurations that we provide to add a SAML Identity Provider. The steps to configure an IDP using the Custom Setup option are :

 Adding IDP Metadata

With the information you have been given by Your IDP team, you can configure IDP settings in 3 ways:

• By Metadata URL
• By uploading Metadata XML file
• Manual Configuration

By Metadata URL

• Click on the Import from Metadata tab.
• Select IDP: Import From Metadata URL.
• Enter IDP metadata URL: Enter your metadata URL.
• If your IDP changes certificates at intervals (Eg. Azure AD), you can refresh your IDP metadata accordingly :
• Navigate to the Advanced SSO options from the menu on the left-hand side of the page.
• Enter your metadata URL in the Certificate Rollover field.
• Select the Refresh Certificate periodically option.
• Use the drop-down provided to set the interval for a periodic refresh.Select 5 minutes for the best results.
• Click Import.

By Uploading Metadata XML File

• Click on the Import from Metadata tab.
• Select IDP: Import from Metadata File.
• Upload metadata file.
• Click Import.

Manual Configuration

Go to Manual Configuration tab and enter the following details:

• IDP Entity ID
• Single Sign On URL
• Single Logout URL
• X.509 Certificate

Next we will be setting up user profile attributes for Jira. The settings for this can be found in the User Profile section.

a. Finding correct attributes

• Go to IDP Configuration section. Scroll down and click on Test Configuration.
• You will see all the values returned by your IDP to Jira in a table. If you don't see value for First Name,Last Name, Email or Username, make the required settings in your IDP to return this information.
• Once you see all the values in Test Configuration, keep the window open and go back to theUser Profile section.

b. Setting profile attributes

• In this tab, fill the values by matching the name of the attribute. For instance, if the Attribute Name in the Test Configuration window is NameID, enter NameID against Username
• Setting up both Username and Email is required if you want to let users register. If you want existing users to only login, configure the attribute using which you will match the user in Jira.

c. Matching a User

When the user logs into Jira, one of the user's data/attribute coming in from the IDP is used to search the user in Jira. This is used to detect the user in Jira and log in the user to the same account.
You can configure it using steps given below:

• Select Username or Email for Login user account by
• Enter the attribute name from IDP which corresponds to Username or Email using Finding Correct Attributes

Now we will be setting up user group attributes for Jira. You can replicate your user's groups present on IDP in your SP. There are multiple ways of doing this.

a. Setting default group

• Select the users' Default Group in the tab User Groups. If no group is mapped, users are added by default to this group.
• You can enable default groups for All Users or New Users using the option.Select None if you don't want to assign any default group to SSO users. Using the option Enable Default Groups for.

b. Finding Group Attribute

• Just like we found Attribute Name for User Profile attributes, we find the group attribute.
• Go to IDP Configuration section. Scroll down and click on Test Configuration.
• You will see all the values returned by your IDP to Jira in a table. If you don't see value with groups, make the required settings in your IDP to return group names.
• Once you see all the values in Test Configuration, keep the window open and go to User Groups tab.
• Enter the Attribute Name of group against Group Attribute.
• Check Disable Group Mapping option if you don't want to update groups of existing users.

c. Group Mapping

Group Mapping can be done in two ways:


• Manual group mapping: If the names of groups in Jira are different than the corresponding groups in IDP, then you should use Manual group mapping.
• On-The-Fly group mapping: If the names of groups in Jira and IDP are same, you should use On-The-Fly group mapping.

I. Manual Group Mapping

• Check Restrict User Creation Based on Group Mapping option if you want new users to be created only if at least one of the user's IDP groups is mapped to a group in the application.
• For mapping, first select a Jira group from the dropdown which lists all groups present in Jira and then enter the name of the IDP group to be mapped in the textbox beside.
• For example, if you want all users in 'dev' group in IDP to be added to jira-software-users, you will need to select jira-software-users from the dropdown and enter 'dev' against jira-software-users.
• Use '+1' and '+10' buttons to add extra mapping fields.
• Use '-' button next to each mapping to delete that mapping.

II. On-The Fly Group Mapping

• Check Create New Groups option if you want new groups from IDP to be created if not found in Jira.
• If the user is part of some group in Jira and that group is not present in the SAML response returned by IDP, then the user will be removed from that group in Jira.
• If you don't want On-The-Fly group mapping to affect Jira groups which are managed locally then add those groups in Exclude Groups field.