Preventing users from accessing JIRA during backups

If you perform an XML backup (e.g. when upgrading JIRA via a test environment or migrating JIRA to another server), you can follow one of these methods to prevent users from accessing JIRA and minimise inconsistencies in the backup file:

• Recommended method:
  • If you have an Apache or other web/proxy server sitting in front of JIRA, then you can stop Apache from proxying to JIRA, and serve a static HTML page with a nice message along the lines of "JIRA is undergoing maintenance". Note:
    • The administrator must be able to access JIRA directly (not through Apache) to perform the XML backup.
    • This method does not require JIRA to be restarted.

• Alternative method 1:

  1. Shut down JIRA, configure it to listen on a different port and restart. Do this by editing the server.xml file (or the jira.xml file in your Apache Tomcat installation running JIRA WAR). Change the following section:

           <Connector port="8080"
                 maxHttpHeaderSize="8192" maxThreads="150" minSpareThreads="25" maxSpareThreads="75" useBodyEncodingForURI="true"
                 enableLookups="false" redirectPort="8443" acceptCount="100" connectionTimeout="20000" disableUploadTimeout="true" />
     

     • Note: If you have enabled HTTPS, then you would need to edit the HTTPS Connector section as well.
  2. Restart JIRA and do the XML backup.
  3. Shut down JIRA, change all the settings back, then re-start JIRA.

• Alternative method 2:
  • If you have a firewall in front of JIRA, you could stop requests from getting through or change the port number that it uses. Note:
    • The administrator will need to log in to JIRA on the temporary port number (or access it from behind the firewall), to perform the XML backup.
    • This method does not require JIRA to be restarted.