Installing JIRA Data Center
These instructions are applicable for installing JIRA Software Data Center or JIRA Service Desk Data Center on your own hardware.
If you're looking to host JIRA Data Center externally, see:
- Getting started with JIRA Data Center on Microsoft Azure
- Getting started with JIRA Data Center on Amazon Web Services
Learn more about what Jira Software Data Center and Jira Service Desk Data Center provide on our website.
Before you begin
Before you install JIRA Data Center, you need to answer a few questions.
What is JIRA Data Center? | |
How do I get it? | |
What are the prerequisites? | |
Do I need a load balancer? |
1. Install or upgrade your JIRA instance
JIRA Data Center is available for JIRA 7.0, or later. If you're not on this version yet, install or upgrade your JIRA instance.
JIRA installation and upgrade guide
Few things to know about:
- If you're installing your instance from scratch, generate a non-Data Center evaluation license at the setup stage, and update to the Data Center license when you're adding the
cluster.properties
file at step 3. - If you're upgrading your instance, update to the Data Center license when you're adding the
cluster.properties
file at step 3.
2. Set up the shared directory
You'll need to create a remote directory that is readable and writable by all nodes in the cluster. There are multiple ways to do this, but the simplest is to use an NFS share.
- Create a remote directory, accessible by all nodes in the cluster, and name it e.g.
sharedhome
. - Stop your JIRA instance.
Copy the following directories from the JIRA local home directory to the new
sharedhome
directory (some of them may be empty).data
plugins
logos
import
export
caches
3. Configure your existing JIRA instance to work in a cluster
In the JIRA local home directory, create a
cluster.properties
file, with contents as follows:Example cluster.properties file:
# This ID must be unique across the cluster
jira.node.id = node1
# The location of the shared home directory for all JIRA nodes
jira.shared.home = /data/jira/sharedhomeFor more information and some additional parameters, see Cluster.properties file parameters.
Start your instance, and apply the Data Center license.
4. Add the first node to the load balancer
The load balancer distributes the traffic between the nodes. If a node stops working, the remaining nodes will take over its workload, and your users won't even notice it.
- Add the first node to the load balancer.
- Restart the node, and then try opening different pages in JIRA. If the load balancer is working properly, you should have no problems with accessing JIRA.
5. Add the remaining nodes to the cluster
Copy the JIRA installation directory and the local home directory from the first node to this new node.
Ensure the new node can access (read and write) the shared home directory.
Edit the cluster.properties file, and change the node ID. All node IDs must be unique among nodes.
Start JIRA. It will read the configuration from the shared home directory, and start without any extra setup.
Take a look around the new JIRA instance. Ensure that issue creation, search, attachments, and customizations work as expected.
If everything looks fine, you can configure your load balancer to start routing traffic to the new node. Once you do this, you can make a couple of changes in one JIRA instance to see if they're visible in other instances as well.
While adding your nodes to the cluster, you can check their status by going to > System > System info. Your nodes will be listed in the Cluster nodes section.
Cluster.properties file parameters
In addition to the required parameters, the cluster.properties file allows you to configure some additional options, mostly related to EhCache.
Security
To secure your application, use a firewall or network segregation (or both) to ensure that only permitted nodes connect to Jira Data Center's Ehcache RMI ports. If you use a firewall, you must open ports in the firewall between nodes and the cache, or else you may see cache replication issues. The two default Ehcache RMI ports are 40001 and 40011.
Monitoring the health of your Data Center
Now that you got your Data Center up and running, we recommend that you keep monitoring its health right from the start. This will help you keep any problems from getting bigger and messing with your work, and you'll always know what's going on in the cluster.
JIRA Data Center is equipped with a set of health checks tools that let you monitor the whole cluster and each node individually, including all important settings. To access the health check tools, go to
> System > Support Tools. All health checks are listed in the Instance health tab.