Global Permissions Overview

Global Permissions determine the actions which a user is allowed to perform in Confluence at a site level. To assign global permissions to a user or group you need Confluence Administrator or greater permissions. 

Note: The first system administrator is defined during initial setup. During the initial configuration of Confluence, the Setup Wizard asks for the username of the System Administrator. This user will have the 'System Administrator' permission and will be a member of the 'confluence-administrators' group.

Overview of the global permissions

The following global permissions can be applied to groups and individuals. 

Comparing the System Administrator permission with the Confluence Administrator permission

Confluence recognises two levels of administrator:

• System Administrator – Users with this permission can perform all the Confluence administrative functions, including the ones which the 'Confluence Administrator' permission does not allow.
• Confluence Administrator – Users with this permission can perform most, but not all, of the Confluence administrative functions.

The two-tier administration is useful when you want to delegate some administrator privileges to project managers or team leaders. You can give 'Confluence Administrator' permission to users who should be able to perform most administrative functions, but should not be able to perform functions that can compromise the security of the Confluence system.

The following functions are granted to the 'System Administrator' permission but excluded from the 'Confluence Administrator' permission:

Comparing the confluence-administrators group with the administrator permissions

The default confluence-administrators group is a special, 'super-user' group that gets permissions above and beyond the Confluence administrator and system administrator global permissions. Members of this group can perform site-wide administration functions, and also see the content of all pages and spaces in the Confluence site, regardless of space permissions or page restrictions.

Restricted pages are not visible to members of the confluence-administrators group in the dashboard, search and most macros, but will be visible in the following places:

• In the sidebar (with Page Tree navigation, but not visible with Child Pages navigation)
• Pages index page
• Reorder pages screen

• Page tree macro
• Quicknav

Members of this group can also see restricted pages if they have the page URL.

Granting a user the system administrator and Confluence administrator global permissions does not allow that user to automatically see all spaces in your site, or see restricted pages. These permissions only give access to administration tools. Be aware, however, that users with system administrator global permission could add themselves to the confluence-administrators group.

Note: changing the global permissions granted to the confluence-administrators group will not affect group member's ability to see all content. If you don't want your admins to be able to see all spaces and restricted pages, you should create a new group, and grant that group the Confluence administrator and system administrator global permissions.

Updating global permissions

To view the global permissions for a group or user:

1. Choose the cog icon , then choose General Configuration under Confluence Administration.
2. Choose Global Permissions in the left-hand panel. The 'View Global Permissions' screen appears.

Add or edit group and user permissions as follows:

To add permissions for a group:

1. First add the group to Confluence, if you have not already done so.
2. Choose Edit Permissions. The 'Edit Global Permissions' screen appears.
3. Enter the group name in the Grant browse permission to box in the 'Groups' section. You can search for the group name.
4. Choose Add.
5. The group will appear in the list and you can now edit its permissions.

To add permissions for a specific user:
(Consider adding the user to a group and then assigning the permissions to the group, as described above, instead of assigning permissions to the specific user.)

1. First add the user to Confluence, if you have not already done so.
2. Choose Edit Permissions. The 'Edit Global Permissions' screen appears.
3. Enter the username in the Grant browse permission to box in the 'Individual Users' section. You can search for the username.
4. Choose Add.
5. The username will appear in the list and you can now edit its permissions.

To add or edit the permissions for a user or group:

1. Select, or clear, the check box under the relevant permission in the row for the relevant user/group. A selected check box indicates that the permission is granted.
2. To allow anonymous access to your Confluence site, select the 'Use Confluence' and 'View User Profile' options in the 'Anonymous Access' section.
   For more information about these permissions, refer to Setting Up Public Access.
3. Choose Save All to save your changes.

Screenshot: Editing global permissions

Error messages you may see

Confluence will let you know if there is a problem with some permissions. In rare situations, you may see the following error messages below a permission:

• 'User/Group not found' - This message may appear if your LDAP repository is unavailable, or if the user/group has been deleted after the permission was created.
• 'Case incorrect. Correct case is: xxxxxx' - This message may appear if the upper/lower case in the permission does not match the case of the username or group name. If you see a number of occurrences of this message, you should consider running the routine supplied to fix the problem.