Running multiple instances of JIRA on one machine

It's possible to run multiple JIRA instances on one machine as long as the instance completes the following requirements:

  • Not sharing the same listening or shutdown port of any other instance or service.
  • Not sharing the same database with another instance.
  • When using services within windows, using 2 different windows service definitions.
  • Not sharing the same JIRA home folder.
  • Not deploying multiple instances using a Single Tomcat Application Container.
  • Having separate licenses for each of the instances.

By default, JIRA runs on port 8080 (and hence is available at (http://<yourserver>:8080, eg. http://localhost:8080).

If you want to run another JIRA instance but already has a service claiming port 8080, there will be a conflict, and JIRA will fail to start. You may see errors like this:

LifecycleException:  Protocol handler initialization failed: java.net.BindException: Address already in use:8080

This can be fixed by changing JIRA to use another listening port (eg. 8090) and shutdown port (eg. 8015). This is done by editing conf\server.xml (eg. in Wordpad). The start of the file looks like:

<Server port="8005" shutdown="SHUTDOWN">

  <Service name="Catalina">

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

Here, change the shutdown port from "8005" to "8015" and change the listening port from "8080" to "8090" (or some other free port — see below).

Then restart JIRA (bin\shutdown.bat; bin\startup.bat) and point a browser to http://<yourserver>:8090 (eg. http://localhost:8090).

If you are running on a Unix server and bind the ports below 1024 (such as port 80 for example), you will need to start JIRA as root in order to successfully bind to the port

Which port number should I choose? 

If you are not sure which port number to choose, use a tool such as netstat to determine which port numbers are free to use by JIRA. The highest port number that can be used is 65535 because it is the highest number which can be represented by an unsigned 16 bit binary number. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) lists the registration of commonly used port numbers for well-known Internet services, it's advisable to avoid any of those ports.

Last modified on Nov 10, 2011

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