Before you begin

Step 1: Locate the Jira home directory to determine the initial installation method

We recommend upgrading Jira using the same method that was used to install it for the first time. If you’re unsure which method that was, find the location of your Jira home directory. That’s usually a good indicator of whether Jira was installed manually or from a binary installer. For more information, see Jira application home directory.

Step 2: Prepare for the upgrade

Make sure you have completed the steps in Preparing for the upgrade. These are mandatory pre-requisites, and are essential for a smooth upgrade.

Step 3: Choose your version

If you need help choosing the right version for you, head to the upgrade matrix to get a quick rundown of features, supported platforms, and technical upgrade notes for all Jira versions.

Step 4: Stop the cluster

Stop Jira on all nodes in the cluster. We also recommend that you configure your load balancer to redirect the traffic away from Jira until the upgrade is complete on all nodes.

Step 1. Download Jira

1. Download one of the Jira applications from our website. Choose the Windows or Linux binary.

• • Jira Software
  • Jira Service Management
    
    

Step 2. Start the installation wizard

The installation wizard will guide you through the upgrade process.

1. Run the installer you've downloaded.

   I'm using Windows...

   a) Run the .exe file. We recommend using a Windows administrator account.

   b) If prompted to allow the upgrade wizard to make changes to your computer, choose Yes. If you do not, the installation wizard will have restricted access to your operating system and any subsequent installation options will be limited.

   I'm using Linux...

   a) Change to the directory where you downloaded Jira, then execute this command to make the installer executable:

   $ chmod a+x atlassian-jira-X.X.X-x64.bin

   Where X.X.X is the Jira version you downloaded.

   b) Run the installer – we recommend using sudo to run the installer:

   $ sudo ./atlassian-jira-X.X.X-x64.bin

   You can also choose to run the installer with root user privileges.

2. Follow the prompts in the wizard:
   
   
   1. When prompted, choose Upgrade an existing Jira installation.
      
      
   2. Make sure the Existing Jira installation directory suggested by the wizard is correct (especially important if you have multiple Jira installations on the same machine.)
      
      
   3. If you have already backed up the Jira home directory, clear the Back up the Jira home directory check box to avoid creating an extra backup. 
      
      

   4. The wizard notifies you of customizations in the Jira installation directory. Make a note of these as you'll need to reapply them later. 

      Your current customizations will be overwritten, but you can later copy them from your backups.

3. In the last screen, the upgrade wizard will ask you to start the Jira instance and complete the upgrade. We recommend that you stop at this step, and complete the remaining steps from this page, up until Start Jira for the first time.

   Starting Jira here won't affect your upgrade in any way, but Jira needs to be shut down to complete the remaining steps. Once you complete them, you can go back to the wizard and start Jira.

Step 3. Install the database driver

If you're using an Oracle or MySQL database, download a new JDBC driver. For other databases, you can omit this step.

1. Download one of the following drivers:
   
   
   • Oracle: JDBC driver 19.3 (ojdbc8)
   • MySQL: MySQL Connector/J 5.1 driver.
     
     
2. Place it in <installation-directory>/lib.

Step 4. Re-apply modifications and increase pool-max-size

While using Jira, you’ve probably added some custom modifications to Jira files. These may include connection details, settings related to memory allocation, or other JVM arguments. In this step, you need to re-apply the same modifications to the new files by copying them from your backups.

Migrated modifications

During the upgrade, the wizard migrated the following from your existing Jira installation:

• TCP values in the server.xml file.
• Location of your Jira home directory in the jira-application.properties file.
• The following values in the setenv.sh / setenv.bat file:
  
  • JVM_SUPPORT_RECOMMENDED_ARGS
  • JVM_MINIMUM_MEMORY
  • JVM_MAXIMUM_MEMORY
  • JIRA_MAX_PERM_SIZE 


Other modifications 

Apart from the above, you need to re-apply all other modifications. Here are the most important files: 

• server.xml
• dbconfig.xml
• jira-config.properties
• web.xml
• setenv.sh / setenv.bat (memory allocation and other JVM arguments)

For more information, see Important files in Jira. 

In addition to these files, if your Jira is running over SSL, you need to reimport certificates into the trust store. For details on how to do this, see How to import a public SSL certificate into a JVM.

Pool-max-size

If you're upgrading from Jira 7.x to Jira 8.x we recommend changing the pool-max-size parameter to 40 in your dbconfig.xml before the upgrade. Leaving the default of 20 can sometimes lead to “ResultSet Closed” errors during re-indexing on 8.x. For information on implementing the change, see Tuning database connections.

Step 5. Disable automatic reindex

Because of the indexing changes introduced between 8.x and 9.x Jira platform versions, indexes from any earlier Jira version will be incompatible after the upgrade.
To create a new index, Jira will trigger an automatic reindex right after you start the application. To avoid reindexing twice (after startup and after upgrading your apps), you can disable the automatic reindex and then run the second one later, whenever you’re ready.

To disable automatic reindex:

1. Edit or create (if it doesn’t exist) the following file:

   <jira-home-directory>/jira-config.properties

2. Add the following line to the preceding file and then save your changes:

   upgrade.reindex.allowed=false

Post-upgrade steps on the first node

Complete these post-upgrade steps only on the first node (the one you've just upgraded). The remaining nodes will later download the upgraded apps and index from the shared directory.

Step 1. Start Jira for the first time

Start your new Jira version, and connect it to the database.

1. (Installer) Go back to your upgrade wizard and  start Jira.
   
   (Installer and Manual) You can also start Jira by going to <installation-directory>/bin, and running one of the following files:
   
   
   • Windows:  start-jira.bat
   • Linux:  start-jira.sh 


2. Open Jira in your browser.
   
   
3. Follow instructions on the screen to complete the setup. 

4. If you've missed any file with custom changes that have not been copied over, you can automatically copy the changes over now. 

   Note that the check for file changes is only be run on the following configuration files:

   - atlassian-jira/ directory
   - conf/server.xml
   - bin/setenv.sh

   and the automatic transfer is only be supported for ATST plugin 1.20.0 and later.

   To automatically transfer the changes, the installer copy of the modified file needs to be the same as in the version you're upgrading to.

   After the changes have been copied over, you'll be prompted to restart Jira.

Post-upgrade landing page

After a successful upgrade, you should see the post-upgrade landing page. It has some useful information about the new version, as shown below.

1. Need to know: A list of new features that might affect your work as an admin.
2. User apps: Status of your apps after the upgrade.
3. Application links: Status of your application links.
4. Release notes: Link to release notes where you can see more detailed information about the version you've upgraded to.

Step 2. (Optional) Update Jira Service Management

If you're using Jira Service Management, you can update it directly in the UI, without downloading a separate installer.

1. Go to Administration () > Applications > Versions and licenses.
2. Update Jira Service Management. This will automatically update Jira Service Management to a compatible version.

Step 3. Upgrade apps (add-ons)

Now you can upgrade apps that had the Compatible once both are updated status. If you need more information about the statuses and apps in general, see Preparing for the upgrade.

1. Go to Administration () > Manage apps > Manage apps.
2. Upgrade your apps to the supported versions.
3. Once the apps are upgraded, you can enable them.

Step 4. Rebuild index

Reindex Jira to recreate your index. This step might take some time, depending on how many issues and apps you have.

1. Go to Administration () > Indexing, and run Lock Jira and rebuild reindex.

Step 5. Copy the upgraded Jira as a template

In this step, you'll copy the new installation directory with all the modifications you did so far. This will give you a template that you'll later copy to other nodes.

1. Copy the new installation directory to some other location. This will be your template.

Upgrade remaining nodes

By now, you should have the ready Jira template, and upgraded add-ons and index data available in the shared directory. In this step, you'll copy the template to other nodes and start them one by one.

1. Copy the template installation directory to the new node.
   
   
2. If the path to the local home directory is different on this node, update it in the setenv.bat / setenv.sh file.
   
   
3. Start Jira on this node.
   
   
4. Rinse & repeat: Repeat these steps on the next node.