Jira Server credentials

To integrate Jira with GitLab, you must create a Jira user account for your Jira projects to access projects in GitLab. This Jira user account must have write access to your Jira projects. To create the credentials, you must:

  1. Create a Jira Server user.
  2. Create a Jira Server group for the user to belong to.
  3. Create a permission scheme for your group.

Create a Jira Server user

This process creates a user named gitlab:

  1. Sign in to your Jira instance as a Jira administrator.
  2. In the upper right corner of the top menu, go to the gear icon and select User Management.
  3. Create a new user account (gitlab) with write access to projects in Jira.
    • Email address: Jira requires a valid email address, and sends a verification email, which is required to set up the password.
    • Username: Jira creates the username by using the email prefix. You can change this username later.
    • Password: You must create a password, because the GitLab integration doesn’t support SSO, such as SAML. To create the password, visit the user profile, look up the username, and set a password.
  4. Select Create user.

After you create the user, create a group for it.

Create a Jira Server group

After you create a Jira Server user, create a group to assign permissions to the user.

This process adds the gitlab user you created to a new group named gitlab-developers:

  1. Sign in to your Jira instance as a Jira administrator.
  2. In the upper right corner of the top menu, go to the gear icon and select User Management.

  3. On the sidebar, select Groups.

    Jira create new user

  4. In the Add group section, enter a Name for the group (for example, gitlab-developers), and then select Add group.
  5. To add the gitlab user to the gitlab-developers group, select Edit members. The gitlab-developers group should be listed in the leftmost box as a selected group.
  6. In the Add members to selected group(s) section, enter gitlab.

  7. Select Add selected users. The gitlab user appears in the Group member(s) section.

    Jira added user to group

Next, create a permission scheme for your group.

Create a permission scheme for your group

After creating the group in Jira, grant permissions to the group by creating a permission scheme:

  1. Sign in to your Jira instance as a Jira administrator.
  2. In the upper right corner of the top menu, go to the gear icon and select Issues.
  3. On the sidebar, select Permission Schemes.
  4. Select Add Permission Scheme, enter a Name and (optionally) a Description, and then select Add.
  5. In the permissions scheme list, locate your new permissions scheme, and select Permissions.
  6. Next to Administer Projects, select Edit.

  7. From the Group dropdown list, select gitlab-developers, and then select Grant.

    Jira group access

Write down the new Jira username and its password, as you need them when configuring GitLab.