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JIRA 6.x Administration Cookbook

Chapter 1. JIRA Server Administration

In this chapter, we will cover:

Installing JIRA for production use
Upgrading JIRA with an installer
Upgrading JIRA manually
Migrating JIRA to another environment
Setting up the context path for JIRA
Setting up SSL
Installing SSL certificates from other applications
Resetting the JIRA administrator password
Generating test data in JIRA
Anonymizing JIRA exports

Installing JIRA for production use

In this recipe, we will look at how to install and set up JIRA in a production environment. This includes setting up a dedicated user to run JIRA under and using an external database.

We will be using the standalone archive distribution, as the steps are consistent across both Windows and Linux platforms.

Getting ready

The following things need to be checked before you start with this recipe:

Download the latest JIRA archive distribution from https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/download and click on the All JIRA Download Options link.
Make sure your server environment meets JIRA's requirements by visiting the following link: https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA/Supported+Platforms.
Install Java on the system. At the time of writing, JIRA 6 required Java 7. Make sure you get the latest update for Java, unless it is explicitly stated as unsupported by JIRA.
Make sure the JAVA_HOME or JRE_HOME environment variable is configured.
Have a database system available, either on the server hosting JIRA or a different server accessible over the network. For this recipe, we will be using MySQL; if you are using a different database, change the commands and queries accordingly.
Download the necessary database driver. For MySQL, you can download it from https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/j.

How to do it…

We first need to create an empty MySQL database for JIRA:

Open up a new command prompt on the MySQL server.
Run the following command (you can also use another user instead of root as long as the user has permission to create new users and databases):
```
mysql -u root -p
```
Enter the password for the user when prompted.
Create a new database for JIRA by running the following command:
```
create database jiradb character set utf8;
```
Create a new user for JIRA in the database and grant the user access to the jiradb database we just created using the following command:
```
grant all on jiradb.* to 'jirauser'@'localhost' identified by 'jirapassword';
```
In the previous five steps, we have created a new database named jiradb and a new database user named jirauser. We will be using these details later to connect JIRA with MySQL. The next step is to install JIRA.
Create a dedicated user account to run JIRA under. If you're using Linux, run the following command as root or with sudo:
```
useradd --create-home --comment "Dedicated JIRA account" --shell /bin/bash jira
```
Note
It is a good practice to reduce security risks by locking down the user account so that it does not have login permissions.
Create a new directory on the filesystem where JIRA will be installed in. This directory will be referred to as JIRA_INSTALL.
Create another directory on the filesystem. This will be used for JIRA to store its attachments, search indexes, and other information. You can create this directory on a different drive with more hard disk capacity, such as a network drive (this could slow down the performance). This directory will be referred to as JIRA_HOME.
Note
It is a good practice to keep the JIRA_INSTALL and JIRA_HOME directories separate, that is, the JIRA_HOME directory should not be a subdirectory inside JIRA_INSTALL. This will make future upgrading and maintenance easier.
Unzip the JIRA archive file in the JIRA_INSTALL directory.
Change both the JIRA_INSTALL and JIRA_HOME directories' owner to the new JIRA user.
Open the JIRA_INSTALL/atlassian-jira/WEB-INF/classes/jira-application.properties file in a text editor.
Locate the jira.home= line in this file.
Cut and paste this in the full path to the JIRA_HOME directory and remove the # symbol if present. Make sure you use the forward slash (/). The following line shows how it looks on a Linux system:
```
jira.home=/opt/data/jira_home
```
Note
Windows uses the backward slash (\) in the file path. You should still use the forward slash (/) while specifying the jira.home directory.
Copy the database driver JAR file to the JIRA_INSTALL/lib directory.
Start up JIRA by running the start-jira.sh (for Linux) or start-jira.bat (for Windows) script from the JIRA_INSTALL/bin directory as the JIRA user.
JIRA comes with a setup wizard that will help guide us through the final phase of the installation.
Open up a browser and go to http://host:8080. By default, JIRA runs on port 8080. You can change this by changing the connector port value in the JIRA_INSTALL/conf/server.xml file.
The first step is to select the language JIRA will use for its user interface.
The second step is to set up the database information. Select the My Own Database (recommended for production environments) option.
Select a value for the Database Type option. For this recipe, select the MySQL option.
Enter the details for our new jiradb database.
Click on Test Connection to check whether JIRA is able to connect to the database.
Click on Next to move to the second step of the wizard as shown in the following screenshot:
Enter the title for this JIRA instance.
Select Public if you would like to let people sign up for accounts, or select Private if you want only administrators to create accounts. For most organizations that use JIRA to track internal projects, it will be the Private mode.
Set the Base URL option. The base URL is the one that users will use to access JIRA. Usually, this should be a fully qualified domain name or the hostname, that is, not a localhost or an IP address.
Click on Next to go to the third step of the wizard, as shown in the following screenshot:
Enter your JIRA license key.
Select the I don't have an account option if you do not have a valid JIRA license and you do not have an account on my.atlassian.com.
Select the I have an account but no key option if you have an account on my.atlassian.com but you do not have a valid JIRA license key.
Select the I have a key option if you have a valid JIRA license key handy.
Click on Next to go to the fourth step of the wizard, as shown in the following screenshot:
Enter the details for the initial administrator account. The user account will have access to all configuration options in JIRA, so make sure you do not lose its login credentials.
Click on Next to go to the fifth and final step of the wizard, as shown in the following screenshot:
Choose if you want to set up an outgoing SMTP server now or later. If you do not have an SMTP server ready right now, you can always come back and configure it later.
Click on Finish to complete the setup process, as shown in the following screenshot:

Once JIRA finishes the final setup procedures, you will be automatically logged in with the initial administrator account you created.

There's more…

By default, JIRA is set to use a maximum of 768 MB of memory. For a production deployment, you might need to increase the amount of memory allocated to JIRA. You can increase this by opening up the setenv.sh (on Linux) or setenv.bat (on Windows) file in the JIRA_INSTALL/bin directory and changing the value for the JVM_MAXIMUM_MEMORY parameter. For example, if we want to set the maximum memory to 2 GB, we will change it to JVM_MAXIMUM_MEMORY="2048m". You will need to restart JIRA after performing this change. For production uses, it is recommended that you allocate at least 2 GB of memory to the JIRA JVM.

If you are using LDAP for user management in your organization, refer to the Integrating with LDAP for authentication only recipe in Chapter 4, User Management.

Description

A comprehensive guide, full of practical recipes with real-life JIRA administration challenges, solutions, and examples with illustrations from the actual application. If you are an administrator who will be customizing, supporting, and maintaining JIRA for your organization, this book is for you. Familiarity with the core concepts of JIRA is essential. For some recipes, basic understanding in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript will also be helpful.

What you will learn

Upgrade and maintain a JIRA instance

Design and implement custom forms to capture information with custom fields, screens, and validation rules

Create custom workflows with complex validation logic and business rules

Secure JIRA data from unauthorized access

Set up single signon for JIRA on a Windows domain

Make JIRA compliant with FDA Part 11 with electronic signatures

Integrate JIRA with other cloud platforms, such as Google Drive

Automate administrative tasks with scripts and commandline interfaces

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Steve Sep 23, 2015

Good how to book.

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Craig Apr 13, 2015

Excellent step by step guidebook to accomplish the most common needs for JIRA. Much better than other publications that I have tried.

Ellen Feaheny Jan 02, 2015

This book is the logical and natural "extra limb" for any Atlassian server administrator serious about their job supporting JIRA end users in a corporation. Sure, you can "get by" winging it day by day, and many do. But as many also learn, with JIRA, ramifications for your configuration decisions matter well beyond the day you make them. Similarly, unraveling early-on poor decisions can be both painful and cumbersome. This book will help you make good and right JIRA configuration decisions out the gate, and simultaneously bring your JIRA skill set up a whole new level. Bonus: your end users and boss(es) will thank you for it.(This is Mr. Li's 3rd book on JIRA; he's worked with the platform for 8+years in some of the largest/most complex corporate JIRA installations in the world.)

Philipp Sendek Sep 12, 2014

JIRA, a software that has its roots in the software development and the bug tracking has a growing popularity even outside of those industries. The fact that JIRA is more like a very versatile framework than a static standard software for managing issues will become clear once more in this bookThe author doesn't limit himself to providing a plain guide that only states the obvious ways of customizations which the user interface offers, but brings in his years of experience to deliver a full-fledged administration guide with extraordinary depth:Apart from general things like the installation, setting up own issues types, workflows, field configurations et al. he picks up common snitches and minor issues and provides practical solutions in form of Velocity-, Groovy- or JavaScript-Code to adjust the appearance, automatize field input or run content checks in screens. Yet this book isn't only dedicated to "hardcore" admins either, as even starters will learn a lot on best practices before or even during setting up and getting familiar with JIRA.Therefor I can absolutely recommend this book to fresh and experienced JIRA admins alike, using it myself to pick up some new tricks in terms of scripting and "under the hood" tweaking.

W Boudville Aug 15, 2014

When the book says Jira is an issue tracking package for a corporate environment, in practice for some of you, this will mean handling complaints and bugs. In the computing community, bug tracking is a common necessity for any firm putting out software.The book is directed towards a system administrator of Jira. There is much flexibility built into what you can make for your users. A form that a user fills out can have fields that you define as mandatory or not. The former means the user must fill out a field. You should probably exercise care about how many such fields you assign this status. Tempting after all to define all fields as mandatory. But that can deter some users from reporting an issue. While this might be frustrating from your standpoint, you have to make a tradeoff between ease of reporting and the comprehensiveness of those reports.Jira is much more than form filling. One chapter delves into how you can define a workflow. Using an simple graphical interface to build a directed graph. A finite state machine, for those readers with the appropriate background. This network machine can then be used by your users in a project. The transitions between nodes [states] of the network can themselves have intermediate screens where users can fill in extra data or get information.If indeed you want to use Jira for software development, then chapter 7 is germane. It shows how to integrate it with github, bitbucket and other 3rd party packages and websites. As you may know, several of these sites are now often used by programmers to archive their code in a globally accessible manner. A key paradigm change in the programming field. Jira lets you accomodate your users if they use these websites.

JIRA 6.x Administration Cookbook: Over 100 hands-on recipes to help you efficiently administer, customize, and extend your JIRA 6 implementation

What do you get with Print?

JIRA 6.x Administration Cookbook

Chapter 1. JIRA Server Administration

Introduction

Installing JIRA for production use

Getting ready

How to do it…

Note

Note

Note

There's more…

Upgrading JIRA with an installer

Getting ready

Tip

How to do it…

See also

Upgrading JIRA manually

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

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