This page last changed on Jul 29, 2009 by smaddox.
Crowd 101

Thank you for choosing Crowd. To help you get up and running quickly, we have compiled some quick-start instructions on configuring and using Crowd with your JIRA and Confluence applications.

This quick-start guide assumes that you have installed and set up JIRA and/or Confluence and now wish to set up Crowd for user management in one or both of them.

  • If you want to use JIRA or Confluence but have not yet installed them, please follow the instructions in JIRA 101 and/or Confluence 101 before configuring Crowd.
  • If you want to use Crowd with other applications but not JIRA or Confluence, please follow the detailed Crowd installation and setup guide rather than this 'Crowd 101' guide.

Getting Started

1. Installing Crowd

First things first. If you have not already got Crowd up and running, carry out the following steps:

2. Adding Users and Groups

Crowd is designed to help you manage users and groups across multiple applications. Your next step is to configure a user directory in Crowd to contain your JIRA and/or Confluence users and groups.

If you have Confluence or JIRA, but not both, pick the scenario above that best matches your requirements, then just skip the steps for the application that you do not need.

3. Connecting the Applications

Crowd manages your users' access to your applications and makes single sign-on (SSO) possible. (More about SSO below.) For this to happen, you need to tell Crowd about the applications and to copy some Crowd libraries into the applications' installation folders.

  1. Add Confluence — Add the Confluence application to Crowd, following the instructions in the Add Application Wizard.
    • Choose 'Confluence' as the application type.
    • In the 'Directories' step, choose the user directory you added for Confluence.
    • In the 'Authorisation' step, allow all users to authenticate.
  2. Configure the Crowd libraries in Confluence — Copy the Crowd client libraries into your Confluence folders and configure the properties files as described on the Confluence integration page.
  3. Now add JIRA — Add the JIRA application to Crowd, following the instructions in the Add Application Wizard.
    • Choose 'JIRA' as the application type.
    • In the 'Directories' step, choose the user directory you added for JIRA.
    • In the 'Authorisation' step, allow all users to authenticate.
  4. Configure the Crowd libraries in JIRA — Copy the Crowd client libraries into your JIRA folders and configure the properties files as described on the JIRA integration page.

We will call these your 'Crowd-connected applications'.

Mastering the Basics

4. Examining your Crowd Server Setup

Go to the System Information screen in Crowd's Administration Console to find useful information about your Crowd server, such as the location of your Crowd Home directory, information about your database and JVM, and your license server ID.

5. Managing SSO

If you have configured single sign-on (SSO) when setting up your Crowd-connected applications (JIRA and Confluence) in step 3 above, your users will only need to log in or log out once, to Crowd or any Crowd-connected application. When they start another Crowd-connected application, they will be logged in automatically. Similarly, when they log out of Crowd or one of the Crowd-connected applications, they will be logged out of Crowd and the other application(s) at the same time.

  • Overview of SSO — An overview of Crowd's SSO capabilities, plus links to detailed information.
  • Configuring Trusted Proxy Servers — If you are running applications behind one or more proxy servers, you may find it useful to configure Crowd to trust the proxies' IP addresses.

Managing your Users' Experience of Crowd

Your users will need to access Crowd at http://<Crowd machine name>:8095/crowd (not http://localhost:8095/crowd).

6. Testing a User's Login


How do I do this? (click to expand)

7. Changing or Resetting a User's Password


How do I do this? (click to expand)

8. Setting Up User Aliases


How do I do this? (click to expand)

9. Granting Crowd User Rights to Someone


How do I do this? (click to expand)

10. Granting Crowd Administrator Rights to Someone


How do I do this? (click to expand)

Important Next Steps

11. Setting Up your Applications' Host Names

When you set up your applications in step 3 above, you will have specified an IP address for each application. If JIRA, Confluence or any Crowd-connected application resides on a server that passes Crowd a host name instead of an IP address, you will need to tell Crowd the host name. Please refer to the documentation.

12. Connecting to an External Database

If you decided to use the default HSQLDB database when you set up Crowd, you need to switch to a production-ready database before using Crowd as a production system. HSQLDB is provided for evaluation purposes only. Please refer to the documentation.

13. Backing Up your Crowd Data

To back up your Crowd data and establish processes for regular backups, please refer to the documentation.

Thank you for choosing Crowd.

We are always happy to help. Feel free to email or call us with any questions you may have.


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Document generated by Confluence on Jul 30, 2009 01:29