Bitbucket Support

12 April 2023

Introducing Bitbucket Data Center and Server 8.9.

We're excited to announce that the Bitbucket Data Center 8.9 Long Term Support release is now available.

Bitbucket Data Center and Server 8.9 is a Long Term Support release

This means we’ll continue to backport critical security and product bug fixes to 8.9 throughout its standard 2-year support window. In addition, when architecturally possible, we’ll also backport all other security bug fixes.

This allows you to get the maximum value from our continuous product development without strictly keeping up with the frequent release cadence.

Long Term Support releases are designed specifically for larger, more complex instances – ones that require significant planning and effort to upgrade. We understand that upgrades for such instances can be few and far between, and so every one of them needs to count. So, if you can manage only one feature release upgrade every year, make sure it is to the latest LTS release.
See the Atlassian Data Center Bug Fix Policy and Security Bug Fix policies for more information.

Long Term Support release roundup

It's been about a year since Bitbucket Server and Data Center 7.21 was released as a Long Term Support release. In that time we've shipped a huge amount of value!

Here's the list of next-level enterprise features to support your critical needs.

Performance and scaling

Bitbucket Mesh, is a distributed Git storage for the best performance and high availability of repositories. Although Bitbucket Mesh is optional, we recommend it for large Bitbucket DC instances under high load.
Archive repositories to declutter unused repositories and let users know they’re no longer being maintained.
Faster audit log for easier and more powerful performance.
Authorization and permissions performance improvements for instances with large number of permissions, users, and groups.

Security and compliance

Secret scanning to notify you of accidentally exposed secrets.
Stricter controls on SSH keys.
Redesigned pages for SSH keys and access keys. We also highlight unsafe SSH keys.
Stricter controls on repository settings.
Updated VPAT documents for accessibility improvements.
Connect to cloud products with secure application tunnels.

Developer and admin experience

Create repository permission to decrease the load on your project admins.
Default tasks for pull requests to create consistent processes and improve developer productivity.
Redesigned permissions pages to easily manage user permissions and meet your compliance needs.
New format for Diff View.

Apps and integrations

Automate at scale with project-level webhooks.
Two new build states, UNKNOWN and CANCELLED, for your CI/CD integration.
View deployment and build information in Jira Cloud.

Monitoring, insights, and troubleshooting

Diagnose and troubleshoot Bitbucket on the fly with the Java Flight Recorder.
Monitor application performance and keep your instance running like clockwork.
REST APIs to troubleshoot mirrors.

All in all, we've resolved over 121 issues since 7.21. For an overview of all the changes, check out the Long Term Support Release Change Log .

So what can you expect from Bitbucket 8.9? We're devoted to raising the already high bar we’ve set for quality, stability, and performance. We’ve focused on thorough testing and hardening of Bitbucket’s existing features to let you focus on planning your upgrade. Whether you choose a Long Term Support release or a standard feature release, always remember to grab the most recent bug fix version to make sure your Bitbucket instance is the best it can be.

Also available now

Bitbucket Mesh changes and improvements

DATA CENTER

If you’re upgrading from a version below 8.0, note that the upgrade process hasn't changed. Provisioning Bitbucket Mesh nodes is optional for the upgrade; however, we recommend Mesh for large and busy Bitbucket instance for faster Git processing and high availability.

Mesh 2.0 is now ready to work with large Bitbucket instances under highest load. Here’s the list of things we’ve added since Mesh 1.0:

Support for large and busy repositories.
Ability to add and remove Mesh nodes seamlessly. Mesh will move and rebalance data into appropriate nodes.
Built-in support for disaster recovery.
Ability to provision Mesh nodes on Kubernetes infrastructure through our supported Helm charts.

Focus on important discussions with resolvable comments

SERVER DATA CENTER

When a pull request has lots of comments it becomes hard to navigate and focus on really important discussions. You can now resolve comment threads to communicate to the rest of the pull request participants that the issue has been addressed, the decision has been made, and no further discussion is needed.

If many comments on the pull request are still open and you want to focus on the code diff, you can quickly declutter your view by collapsing comment threads. Learn how to resolve comments

Other changes and improvements

Support for HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS)

We’ve added support for HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) policy mechanism. HSTS helps reduce the chances of users accidentally connecting to Bitbucket over non-secure HTTP connections and prevents man-in-the-middle attacks.

By default, HSTS is disabled in your Bitbucket instance. To enable it, add server.hsts.enabled=true to the bitbucket.properties configuration file, and then restart Bitbucket. You can also add this property before you upgrade to 8.9. The HSTS policy will be enabled when Bitbucket restarts after upgrading to 8.9+.

Bitbucket 8.9.10 security enhancement: App upload through UPM and REST API disabled by default

In Bitbucket Data Center 8.18.0, two ways of app installation through UPM (the Universal Plugin Manager) became disabled by default:

with the Upload app button on the Manage apps page
with the REST API

We've also backported this change to Bitbucket 8.9.10. So in Bitbucket 8.9.10 and all the next bugfix releases of Bitbucket 8.9.x, you can install new apps only by selecting the Install button on the Find new apps page. This limitation prevents unwanted uploads of potentially malicious files to your Bitbucket instance.

If you need to enable app installation with the Upload app button on the Manage apps page or with the REST API, set the following property in the bitbucket.properties file:

upm.plugin.upload.enabled=true

If app installation from files and through the REST API is an integral part of your workflow, we strongly recommend setting the relevant property to enable it prior to the upgrade.

If you decide to enable the feature after the upgrade, make sure to restart your instance for the changes to take effect.

If you run a Bitbucket cluster, a rolling restart is enough to pick up the configuration properties you set to enable the features.

Accessibility fixes for low-vision and keyboard-only users

Continuing our accessibility journey, we've resolved 8 issues related to screen reader support and keyboard navigation that will enable users to perform essential tasks within Bitbucket.

Check out the full list of fixed issues

Before you upgrade to 8.9

SERVER DATA CENTER

H2 database migration requirement

The H2 database driver has been upgraded to the currently latest version 2.2.220. The upgrade has boosted data security.

If you’re upgrading to Bitbucket 8.8 and later or Mesh 1.5 and later, you’ll need to migrate the data manually to the upgraded Bitbucket or Mesh instance if:

you’re using a mirror
you’re using Bitbucket Server with a H2 database
you’ve set up Bitbucket Mesh

Learn more about how to migrate your H2 database

Updates to supported platforms

Bitbucket 8.9 now includes support for running:

Git 2.40.x is supported in Bitbucket 8.9.0 and later 8.9.x bugfix releases.
Git 2.43.x is supported in Bitbucket 8.9.11 and later 8.9.x bugfix releases.
Git 2.44.x is supported in Bitbucket 8.9.12 and later 8.9.x bugfix releases.
Git 2.45.x is supported in Bitbucket 8.9.17 and later 8.9.x bugfix releases.
Git 2.46.x is supported in Bitbucket 8.9.19 and later 8.9.x bugfix releases.

Git 2.43.x, 2.44.x, and 2.45.x may contain a performance regression, so we don't recommend using these versions of Git. The performance issue in Git is fixed in 2.46.x which is supported by Bitbucket 8.9.19 and later 8.9.x bugfix releases.

Get ready to upgrade

Before upgrading from an earlier version, check out our upgrade guide and upgrade matrix. Remember to renew your active software maintenance license too.

Renew now

As part of our new pull request experience from version 7.0 and higher, we have created a collection of new features for you to check out on one page, Enhancements to your code review workflow.