By selecting the 'External user management' option in Confluence, you can disable the group and user management screens in Confluence. You need system administrator permissions to set this option.

You will find it useful to select external user management under the following circumstances:

• When Crowd's directory permissions are configured so that Confluence cannot update the Crowd directories, then Confluence's external user management setting must be turned on. Otherwise, a 'System Error' will occur when Confluence attempts to write data into Crowd. For more information about integrating Crowd with Confluence, see Connecting to Crowd or JIRA for User Management.
• If you are using JIRA for user management, we recommend that you turn on Confluence's external user management setting. This centralises user management in JIRA. See Connecting to Crowd or JIRA for User Management and Connecting to JIRA 4.2 or Earlier for User Management.

To disable management of users and groups within Confluence:

Note: If you disable the built-in user management:

• You will not be able to use public signup in your site.
• The Forgot Password link will not appear on the Confluence login page. 
• Users will not be able to reset their password in Confluence.