Confluence Command Line Interface (CLI)

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Create Action File

In this step, you will be creating a text file that contains the CLI actions that will create a Confluence space and set appropriate permissions for it. This file will be invoked and executed in a later step.

1. Open an editor capable of producing a plain text file, such as Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac), and then paste in the contents shown to the right.
   
   1. Line 1 executes the addSpace action to create a new Confluence space using the following parameters:
      
      • --space defines the space key for the new space.
      • --name defines the name of the new space.
      • --description provides some explanation regarding the purpose or use of the new space.
   2. Line 2 executes the addPermissions action to grant permissions to anonymous users.
   3. Line 3 executes the addPermissions action to grant permissions to members of the confluence-users group.
   4. Line 4 executes the addPermissions action to grant permissions to members of the confluence-administrators group.

   5. Line 5 executes the addPermissions action to grant permissions to a user with the username of "joe" who, in our example, represents the person requesting the new space.

      Note
      You should replace "joe" with a userid that is defined in your JIRA instance.

      
      

   6. Lines 2 through 5 use the following parameters for the addPermissions action:

      • --space defines the space key for the new space. It is using a @space@ variable that indicates to use the last referenced space key, which would be the one on Line 1's addSpace action. You could also use the same value used on Line 1 ("newSpaceKey"), but using the variable will result in you making fewer edits when using this file again to create another new space.
      • --userId identifies the username of the user to whom permissions should be granted. This can be a specific person's username (as used on Line 5) or it can also be "anonymous" (as used on Line 2) to grant access to anonymous users. An 'anonymous user' is someone who has not logged in to the Confluence site.
      • --group identifies the group to whom permissions should be granted.

      • --permissions identifies each permission to be granted to the userId or group.

        Expand
        title View allowable permissions...
        Div style max-width: 600px; Permission Allows User to... COMMENT Make comments in the space. CREATEATTACHMENT Add attachments to pages in the space. EDITBLOG Add blog posts in the space. EDITSPACE Add pages in the space. EXPORTPAGE (This option has been deprecated.) EXPORTSPACE Export content from the space via the space-level export screens. Note that this permission doesn't affect the exporting of a single page's content. Anyone who has permission to view the page also has permission to export its content. REMOVEATTACHMENT Delete attachments from pages in the space. REMOVEBLOG Delete blog posts in the space. REMOVECOMMENT Delete comments from the space. REMOVEMAIL Delete individual mail items. REMOVEPAGE Delete pages in the space. SETPAGEPERMISSIONS Apply page-level restrictions. SETSPACEPERMISSIONS Administer this space, including granting permissions to other users. This permission can't be granted to anonymous users (users who aren't logged in). VIEWSPACE View content within the space, including pages, blog posts etc.

        
        

2. Save the file under the name CreateNewWikiSpace_actions.txt in the same folder to which you installed the Confluence CLI client.

Create Confluence CLI command

In this step, you will form the command line that will invoke the Confluence CLI to execute the action file you created in the previous step.

The command is shown to the right.

• confluence indicates to invoke the Confluence CLI client.
• The run action indicates to run actions from the file identified in the --file parameter.

Execute Confluence CLI command

In your command window, type the command from the previous step and press Enter.

The command will run, showing the result of executing the actions defined in the CreateNewWikiSpace_actions.txt file you created earlier.

Note that Administrator rights to the new space will  automatically be given to the user whose credentials were used when running the Confluence CLI.

If you go into the Space Administration screens to look at the Space Details and Permissions screens, you should see something similar to the screenshots shown to the right.

That's it! With one command, you've created a Confluence space and saved yourself from having to complete many steps to do it!

Bonus Tip

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You may have established one or more sets of "standard permissions" you use in your Confluence site, such as one for a personal space, one for a team space, and another for a public space open to everyone.

If this is the case, you may want to use a modified version of the CreateNewWikiSpace_actions.txt file as shown on the right.

In this modified version, Lines 2 through 5 are replaced with a single line (Line 2) that uses the copyPermissions action so that the new space is created with permissions identical to what is used in another space. The parameters used by this action are:

• --space which identifies the the space key of a space that has the permissions you want to copy
• --newSpace which uses the @space@ variable to indicate it is the newly created space to which the other space's permissions should be copied.