Stash is now known as Bitbucket Server.
See the

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of this page, or visit the Bitbucket Server documentation home page.

Hey! We're going to install Stash on Windows. There are a few steps, but we think you'll really like Stash once it's up and running.

1. Check supported platforms

Better check the Supported platforms page first; it lists the application servers, databases, operating systems, web browsers and JDKs that we have tested Stash with and recommend.

Atlassian only officially supports Stash running on x86 hardware and 64-bit derivatives of x86 hardware.

Cygwin Git is not supported. No internal testing is done on that platform, and many aspects of Stash's functionality (pull requests and forks among them) have known issues. When running Stash on Windows, always use msys Git.

2. Check your version of Java

In a command prompt, run this:

java -version

The version of Java should be 1.6.0 or higher.

Download and install the Java Platform JDK (not the JRE) from Oracle's website.

Now try running 'java -version' again to check the installation. The version of Java should be 1.6.0 or higher.

3. Check that Windows can find Java

Stash uses the JAVA_HOME environment variable to find Java. To check that, in a command prompt, run:

echo %JAVA_HOME%

You should see a path to the root directory of the Java installation. When running Stash on Windows, unlike Linux or Unix, JAVA_HOME paths with spaces are just fine.

If you don't see a path, or if you just see %JAVA_HOME%, then set JAVA_HOME as follows:

For Windows 7:

  1. Go to Start, search for "sys env" and choose Edit the system environment variables.
  2. Click Environment Variables, and then New under 'System variables'.
  3. Enter "JAVA_HOME" as the Variable name, and the absolute path to where you installed Java as the Variable value. Don't use a trailing backslash, and don't wrap the value in quotes.

Now, in a new command prompt,  try running '%JAVA_HOME%\bin\java -version'. You should see the same version of Java as you saw in 2. above.

4. Check your versions of Git and Perl

In a command prompt, run:

git --version
perl --version

The version of Git should be 1.7.6 or higher. The version of Perl should be 5.8.8 or higher.

Download the Full installer for official Git for Windows. Installing msysGit also installs a supported version of Perl.

Run the Git installer. Ensure that git.exe is available in the path:

  • Option 2, "Run Git from the Windows Command Prompt", or Option 3, "Run Git and included Unix tools from the Windows Command Prompt", will both work with Stash.
  • Do not select Option 1, "Use Git Bash only" -- this will not work with Stash.

Now, in a new command prompt, try running 'git --version' again. The version of Git should be 1.7.6 or higher.

(warning) msysGit is the only supported distribution when running Stash on Windows. Cygwin Git is not supported and has known issues.

5. Now it's time to get Stash

Download Stash from the Atlassian download site. Looking for the Stash WAR file?

Extract the downloaded file to an install location. The path to the extracted directory is referred to as the <Stash installation directory> in these instructions.

(warning)   Don't use spaces in the path to the Stash installation directory.

6. Tell Stash where to store your data

The Stash home directory is where your Stash data is stored.

Create your Stash home directory, and then tell Stash where you created it by setting a STASH_HOME environment variable, as follows.

For Windows 7:

  1. Go to Start, search for "sys env" and choose Edit the system environment variables.
  2. Click Environment Variables, and then New under 'System variables'.
  3. Enter "STASH_HOME" as the Variable name, and the absolute path to your Stash home directory as the Variable value. Don't use a trailing backslash.

(warning) There are a couple of things to know about setting up the Stash home directory on Windows that will make life easier:

  • You should not locate your Stash home directory inside the <Stash installation directory> — they should be entirely separate locations. If you do put the home directory in the <Stash installation directory> it will be overwritten, and lost, when Stash gets upgraded. And, by the way, you can't use the same Stash home directory for multiple instances of Stash.
  • Keep the path length to the Stash home directory as short as possible. See Stash always shows incorrect Merge Conflict in PRs for an explanation.
  • Don't use spaces in the path to the Stash home directory.

7. Start Stash!

(warning) Stash needs to be run as a non-administrator user.

The user that runs Stash must have read and write access to the Stash home directory and the <Stash installation directory>.

In a command prompt, change directory to the <Stash installation directory> and run the following command:

bin\start-stash.bat

In your browser, go to http://localhost:7990 and run through the Setup Wizard. In the Setup Wizard:

8. Set up your mail server

Configure your email server so users can receive a link from Stash that lets them generate their own passwords. See Setting up your mail server.

9. Add users and repositories

Now is the time to set up your users in Stash, and to tell Stash about any existing repositories you have. Please the following pages for the details:

Additional steps for production environments

For production environments we recommend that you configure the additional aspects below. These are not necessary when installing for evaluation purposes. Please see Using Stash in the enterprise for more information about best practice.

Run Stash as a dedicated user 
Use an external database
Secure the Stash home directory
  • For production environments the Stash home directory (created in step 7 above) should be secured against unauthorised access. See Stash home directory.
Secure Stash with HTTPS
  • For production environments access to Stash should be secured using HTTP over SSL, especially if your data is sensitive and Stash is exposed to the internet. See Securing Stash with Tomcat using SSL.
Run Stash as a Windows service
Connect to your existing user directory
Change the context path for Stash
  • Where you are running Stash behind a proxy, or you have another Atlassian application, or any Java web application, available at the same hostname and context path as Stash, then you should set a unique context path for Stash. See Moving Stash to a different context path.

Stopping Stash (optional)

In a command prompt, change directory to the <Stash installation directory> and run:

bin\stop-stash.bat
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