Confluence Companion App for Linux

The Companion App for Linux is an inoffical port of the Atlassian Companion App (originally only available for Windows and MacOS) for usage on Linux clients. It is basically just a tiny python script (~400 lines).

With the Companion App you can edit files in Atlassian Confluence with your preferred (local installed) desktop application. The companion app will automatically upload the file to Confluence if it changed on disk.

When reporting bugs, please append a detailed description of the error including which Confluence version you are using and whether you are running your own Confluence server or if you are using the cloud version.

Debian Package Installation (Debian/Ubuntu/Mint)

1. Download and install the .deb package from the latest release on Github.
2. After installation please log out and log in again. The script then starts automatically.
3. Open Confluence in your web browser, open a document and click on "Edit". The companion script will display a GUI dialog asking if you want to trust this site. Click "Yes". Now you can edit files.

Manual Installation (Debian/Ubuntu/Mint)

1. Install required Python packages

apt install python3-pip python3-distutils python3-pyinotify python3-wxgtk4.0
pip3 install websockets

2. Set execution rights and copy companion2.py (for Confluence 7.4.0 and newer).

chmod +x companion2.py
cp companion2.py /usr/bin
cp companion-protocol-handler.desktop /usr/share/applications
update-desktop-database

3. Set execution rights, copy and start companion.py (for older Confluence versions).

chmod +x companion.py
cp companion.py /usr/bin
cp companion-autostart.desktop /etc/xdg/autostart
nohup /usr/bin/companion.py &

4. Open Confluence in your web browser, open a document and click on "Edit".
   In Confluence 7.4 and newer, the browser will ask you if you want to open the Companion app. In older versions, the companion script will display a GUI dialog asking if you want to trust this site. Click "Yes". Now you can edit files.

Further hints:

• Temporary files will be saved in ~/.cache/companion/tmp and config files in ~/.config/companion. Please ensure that you have write permissions in that directories.

Functionality

There are 3 ways how the companion app works. "companion.py" handles case 2, "companion2.py" handles case 3 and case 1 is not supported anymore.

1. Local Web Server With SSL Certificate

The web browser connects via websocket to atlassian-domain-for-localhost-connections-only.com (which points to 127.0.0.1) where the companion app listens for requests.

SSL encryption between Browser and Companion App (through atlassian-domain-for-localhost-connections-only.com) is not supported anymore as described here.

2. Local Web Server Without SSL

The web browser connects via websocket to 127.0.0.1. This technology was replaced with a new technology (case 3) in Atlassian Companion App v1.0.0 / Confluence 7.4.0 in order to support terminal server environments (see here).

3. Via Protocol Scheme »atlassian-companion:«

The companion app waits until called from browser with a command line argument like »atlassian-companion:{"link":"https://....}«.