Connecting Jira applications to PostgreSQL

These instructions will help you connect Jira to a PostgreSQL database.

Before you begin

On this page:

1. Create and configure the PostgreSQL database

Accept remote TCP connections (remote PostgreSQL server only)

If you are connecting Jira to a remote PostgreSQL server (i.e. if your PostgreSQL server is not installed locally on your Jira server host system), you will need to configure your data/postgresql.conf and data/pg_hba.conf files to accept remote TCP connections from your Jira server's IP address.

The following PostgreSQL documentation contains information on the appropriate listen_addresses value in the postgresql.conf file as well as the pg_hba.conf file:

After you modify the data/postgresql.conf and data/pg_hba.conf files, restart PostgreSQL for the changes to take effect.

Create users and databases for your version of PostgreSQL

You can find information on creating users and databases for your version of PostgreSQL on their website.

  1. Create a database user (login role) which Jira will connect as (e.g. jiradbuser).
    Remember this database user name, as it will be used to configure Jira's connection to this database in subsequent steps.
  2. Create a database for Jira to store issues in (e.g. jiradb) with Unicode collation.
    Remember this database name, as it will be used to configure Jira's connection to this database in subsequent steps.

    CREATE DATABASE jiradb WITH ENCODING 'UNICODE' LC_COLLATE 'C' LC_CTYPE 'C' TEMPLATE template0;

    Or from the command-line:

    $ createdb -E UNICODE -l C -T template0 jiradb
  3. Ensure that the user has permissions to connect to the database, and to create and write to tables in the database.


    GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE <Database Name> TO <Role Name>
  4. To verify that the privileges were granted successfully, connect to the database and run the \z command.

To achieve and maintain optimal PostgreSQL performance, you need to schedule maintenance tasks that will run on a daily basis and update statistics on the database. For information on how to set up regular maintenance tasks, see Optimize and Improve PostgreSQL Performance with VACUUM, ANALYZE, and REINDEX.

I'm using PostgreSQL 15 and my Jira can't create tables in the database

With PostgreSQL 15, there has been a change in the way table creation permissions are handled for users. PostgreSQL 15 revokes the CREATE permission from all users except a database owner from the public (or default) schema. According to the Postgres 15 documentation, you can fix it by creating a user-private schema for the Jira database user.

However, you can also grant the permission to the public schema by running the following commands:

  1. Create the user that Jira will be using.

    postgres=# CREATE USER atlas WITH PASSWORD 'atlas';
  2. Create the database.

    postgres=# CREATE DATABASE atlas WITH ENCODING 'UNICODE' LC_COLLATE 'C' LC_CTYPE 'C' TEMPLATE template0;
  3. Grant the necessary privileges to the database:

    postgres=# GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE atlas TO atlas;
  4. Connect to the database.

    postgres=# \c atlas postgres

     You are now connected to database atlas as user postgres.

  5. Grant the required schema privileges:

    atlas=# GRANT ALL ON SCHEMA public TO atlas;


2. Configure your Jira server to connect to your PostgreSQL database

There are two ways to configure your Jira server to connect to your PostgreSQL database:

  • Using the Jira setup wizard — Use this method if you have just installed Jira, and you are setting it up for the first time. Your settings will be saved to the dbconfig.xml file in your Jira home directory.
  • Using the Jira configuration tool — Use this method if you have an existing Jira instance. Your settings will be saved to the dbconfig.xml file in your Jira home directory.

Instructions for each configuration method

Jira setup wizard

The Jira setup wizard will display when you access Jira for the first time in your browser.

  1. In the first screen, 'Configure Language and Database', set Database Connection to My own database.
  2. Set Database Type to PostgreSQL.
  3. Fill out the fields, as described in the Database connection fields section below.
  4. Test your connection and save.

Jira configuration tool

  1. Run the Jira configuration tool as follows:
  2. Navigate to the Database tab, and set Database type to PostgreSQL.
  3. Fill out the fields, as described in the Database connection fields section below.
  4. Test your connection and save.
  5. Restart Jira.

Database connection fields

Setup Wizard / Configuration Tooldbconfig.xmlDescription
Hostname

Located in the <url> tag (bold text in example below):
<url>jdbc:postgresql://dbserver:5432/jiradb</url>

The name or IP address of the machine that the PostgreSQL server is installed on.
PortLocated in the <url> tag (bold text in example below):
<url>jdbc:postgresql://dbserver:5432/jiradb</url>
The TCP/IP port that the PostgreSQL server is listening on. You can leave this blank to use the default port.
DatabaseLocated in the <url> tag (bold text in example below):
<url>jdbc:postgresql://dbserver:5432/jiradb</url>

The name of your PostgreSQL database (into which Jira will save its data). You should have created this in Step 1 above.

Username

Located in the <username> tag (see bold text in example below):
<username>jiradbuser</username>

The user that JIRA uses to connect to the PostgreSQL server. You should have created this in Step 1 above.
PasswordLocated in the <password> tag (see bold text in example below):
<password>jiradbuser</password>
The user's password — used to authenticate with the PostgreSQL server.
SchemaLocated in the <schema-name> tag (see bold text in example below):
<schema-name>public</schema-name>

The name of the schema that your PostgreSQL database uses.

PostgreSQL 7.2 and later require a schema to be specified in the <schema-name/> element. If your PostgreSQL database uses the default 'public' schema, this should be specified in the <schema-name/> element as shown below. Ensure that your database schema name is lower-case, as JIRA cannot work with PostgreSQL databases whose schema names contain upper-case characters.

We recommend using public schema as a custom one might cause issues. See JRASERVER-64886

Sample dbconfig.xml file

For more information about the child elements of <jdbc-datasource/> beginning with pool in the dbconfig.xml file above, see Tuning database connections.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<jira-database-config>
  <name>defaultDS</name>
  <delegator-name>default</delegator-name>
  <database-type>postgres72</database-type>
  <schema-name>public</schema-name>
  <jdbc-datasource>
    <url>jdbc:postgresql://dbserver:5432/jiradb</url>
    <driver-class>org.postgresql.Driver</driver-class>
    <username>jiradbuser</username>
    <password>password</password>
    <pool-min-size>20</pool-min-size>
    <pool-max-size>20</pool-max-size>
    <pool-max-wait>30000</pool-max-wait>
    <pool-max-idle>20</pool-max-idle>
    <pool-remove-abandoned>true</pool-remove-abandoned>
    <pool-remove-abandoned-timeout>300</pool-remove-abandoned-timeout>
 
    <validation-query>select version();</validation-query>
    <min-evictable-idle-time-millis>60000</min-evictable-idle-time-millis>
    <time-between-eviction-runs-millis>300000</time-between-eviction-runs-millis>
  
    <pool-test-on-borrow>false</pool-test-on-borrow>
	<pool-test-while-idle>true</pool-test-while-idle>

  </jdbc-datasource>
</jira-database-config>

Both the Jira setup wizard and database configuration tool also add the element <validation-query>select 1</validation-query> to the dbconfig.xml file, which is usually required when running Jira with default MySQL installations. See Surviving connection closures for details.

3. Start Jira

You should now have Jira configured to connect to your PostgreSQL database. The next step is to start it up!

(tick) Congratulations, you now have Jira connected to your PostgreSQL database.

Last modified on Nov 17, 2023

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