After 13 years, Atlassian delivers custom domain names for Jira
Customers aren't thrilled at double subdomain or need for Premium license
Atlassian will soon close its infamous CLOUD-6999 feature request ticket – opened in 2011 in response to customers seeking custom domains for its cloudy products – as it claims the feature has been delivered. Customers, however, aren't entirely happy.
The Australian collaboration company on Tuesday updated the request with a post from senior group product manager Moinak Chatterjee, who announced "Custom domains are now generally available for Jira and will become generally available for Confluence starting in Q3."
But Atlassian's implementation of custom domains requires two subdomains! As explained in a support document, users will need to use the pattern <subdomain>.<subdomain>.<domain>. If The Register were a Jira user we would therefore need to adopt a custom domain along the lines of jira.instance.theregister.com.
Atlassian argues that structure is needed to defend against man-in-the-middle attacks.
The company is clearly aware that a double-subdomain is not the most elegant solution – Chatterjee's post notes "At this point, we do not have plans to revisit the two-level subdomain construct, but customers who would like to use a shorter URL can set up a URL redirect."
Doing so, he wrote, will mean users "can create links with a shorter, fully customized base URL that redirects your users to the full URL."
His post also reveals that custom domains will only be available to customers who sign for a Cloud Premium license.
That license was launched in 2019 – eight years after CLOUD-6999 was posted in 2011.
Chatterjee's post states that CLOUD-6999 will be closed 30 days after custom domains go live in Q3 – which should bring this saga to an end.
If Atlassian customers haven't rebelled by then – a prospect we mention as posts in response to Tuesday's news are not positive. Users have complained that the double-subdomain requirement is not what was requested back in 2011, and that allowing custom domains only for Premium customers is unwelcome.
Another reason for customer ire is that Atlassian promised to deliver custom domains in 2023, so even its not-what-we-asked-for solution is rather late arriving. ®