To provide fast searching, Jira creates an index of the text entered into issue fields. This index is stored on the file system, and updated whenever issue text is added or modified. It's sometimes necessary to regenerate the index manually, for instance when you add a new custom field, or if the index is lost or corrupted. For more info on when you should re-index, see Re-indexing after major configuration changes.

On this page:

Re-indexing Jira

1. Go to Administration () > System.
2. Select Advanced > Indexing to open the Indexing page.

3. This page allows you to choose one of the following two re-indexing options: 

   • Background re-index: Re-index all issues in the background.
   • Full re-index: Delete and rebuild the whole index, including the comment and change history indexes.

1. 1. Options: Background or full re-index. If you're not sure which one to choose, see Re-indexing options.
   2. Current node: Node on which the re-index will be performed. Available only in Jira Data Center.
   3. Index path: Directory where the index is stored.

Re-indexing options

Not sure which re-indexing option to choose? Here's some information that will help you decide.

Background re-index

This option allows any Jira instance to remain usable during re-indexing; however, the instance will be slower. If you have to perform this option, do so during a low-usage period. 

In addition, your disk fragmentation increases each time you perform a Background re-index. Whenever possible, perform a project re-index instead, especially if you just performed configuration changes that only affect one project. See Re-indexing a single project for instructions.

Full re-index

Use this option when the indexes are corrupted, which may be caused by a system or disk failure. This option deletes all indexes and rebuilds them.

Overall, the Full re-index option provides greater benefits. The only downside for this option is that it'll lock a single-node instance, making it unavailable to users during the re-index.

Over time, your instance's disk becomes fragmented from normal use, which slows down your instance. Only the Full re-index option can address this. This means that, regardless of whether you're running a single- or multi-node instance, you should run a full re-index to address fragmentation periodically (for example, weekly or monthly).

Choosing a custom Index Path

To change the Index Path, you must be logged in as a user with the Jira System Administrators global permission.

• If you upgraded Jira with an XML backup from a Jira version prior to 4.2 and used a custom directory for your index path, you can choose between using this custom directory (which cannot be edited) or the default directory for your index path location. However, once you switch to using the default directory, you can no longer choose the custom directory option.
• The default directory location is the caches/indexesV2 subdirectory of the Jira application home directory.

 NFS storage for Jira indexes is not supported. See Supported platforms for more information.

Re-indexing Jira Data Center with no downtime

Keeping the integrity of indexes is as important as having your Jira instance open to users all the time. These steps will help you run the Full re-index option, which deletes and recreates all indexes, with no downtime.

Before you begin:

Choose a node and remove it from the load balancer. You'll use it to perform the re-index.

To re-index Jira Data Center with no downtime:

1. Access Jira on the node you've chosen, and select Administration () > System.
2. Select Advanced > Indexing to open the Indexing page. Then, run Full re-index.
3. After the re-indexing is complete, take a look around the Jira instance to make sure everything looks fine.
4. Add the node back to the load balancer.

After completing the re-indexing, the rebuilt indexes will be automatically distributed to other nodes in the cluster (there might be some performance degradation during that time). If some changes were made to the indexes in the meantime, they will also be applied to maintain the integrity.

Backing up and recovering your index

Index recovery is enabled by default and set to create index snapshots everyday at 2 am. This allows you to recover your index quickly, rather than rebuilding the index, if there is a failure. This is particularly useful if you have a large Jira installation and you cannot afford for it to be offline for long. If you have a small Jira instance, it may not be worth enabling index recovery, as rebuilding the index won't take much time.

Whether a full index rebuild is faster than recovering from a snapshot depends on a number of factors, including how recent the snapshot being recovered was taken. Large and complex installations should test this process on a development/testing server before relying on it in production.

To enable index recovery:

1. Navigate to the Indexing page (as described above).
2. Click Edit Settings to enable index recovery and choose the frequency of snapshots.
   
   • Snapshots are stored in the <yourJirahome>/caches/indexesV2/snapshots directory.

To recover an index:

1. Navigate to the Indexing page (as described above).
2. Enter the name of the previously saved index in File name and click Recover.
   
   • Jira will not be available during the recovery of the index. 
   • If changes were made to the configuration that required a re-index after the snapshot was taken, then you will need to do a background re-index after the recovery. Note, Jira will be available after the recovery.

Additional information

• Jira will retain the last three snapshots at any time (in <yourJirahome>/caches/indexesV2/snapshots). Older snapshots will be automatically deleted. Note, snapshots may occupy considerable disk space and may need to be moved to offline storage or deleted as appropriate.
• The snapshot process is a relatively lightweight process and does not place much of a load on the system.
• The process of taking a snapshot will require temporary disk space equivalent to the index size. The resulting snapshots will each be about 25% the size of the index.
• All issues will be re-indexed appropriately during the recovery, including issues that were added, updated or deleted after the snapshot was taken.

• You can use the index recovery process to bring your index up to date, if you need to restore your Jira database. The index snapshot must pre-date the database backup being restored.

Re-indexing a single project

If you have made a configuration change that affects a single project, you can re-index just that project. See Re-indexing after major configuration changes for more information on when you should re-index.

If you have Jira System admin permissions, you can re-index a single project as follows:

1. In the upper-right corner of the screen, select Administration () > Projects.  
2. Go to the project that you want to reindex.
3. Under the Project settings (the left-side panel), select Re-index project.
4. Select Start project re-index.

If you have Jira Project admin permissions, you can re-index a single project as follows:

1. In the bottom-right corner of the screen, select Project settings ().
2. Under the Project settings (the left-side panel), select Re-index project.
3. Select Start project re-index.