Jira 8.13 Long Term Support release upgrade guide
Customers value and trust Long Term Support releases because of continued access to critical security, stability, data integrity and performance issues that we provide until each version reaches end of life. Long Term Support release is the perfect combo of great new features and great stability.
Why you should upgrade
Features galore
Jira 8.13 is simply way better than previous releases. Have a look at these key features:
- Cluster monitoring for Data Center: get more control over what's going on in your cluster - decide how fast you want to move stale nodes offline and see which custom fields take the longest to index.
- Advanced auditing for Data Center: Get more insight into what is happening in your Jira instance. Advanced auditing gives you the ability to track and log actions in your instance developing a security-relevant chronological record that can be exported and stored in third-party monitoring tools.
- Burnup charts for agile boards: Keep teams on track with a visual representation of a sprint's scope and identify problems such as scope creep or a deviation from the planned project path.
Changes & improvements
Jira 8.13 comes with a number of changes, including features, supported platforms, and performance improvements:
- Change log: Get a quick roll-up of the most important changes in the latest versions.
- Hardware recommendations for Data Center: Find out which hardware runs best with Jira 8.13.
- Cleanup guide: Get some tips and tricks on how to clean up your instance making it faster and more user-frinedly.
Some annoying bugs fixed
- On large instances the createmeta REST endpoint can take a very long amount of time to return results or cause JIRA to OOM
- RCE via Velocity Template in Email Subject and Contact Administrator
- Dev.Status can get stuck paging over issue updates from Bitbucket Server, Bamboo or Fecru and cause excessive load on database
Want to know more? See our change log.
Summary of the upgrade
Here's a summary of the upgrade path you'll be following:
| Source version | 7.13, 8.5 Already on 8.x? Go to our regular upgrade guide. |
|---|---|
| Target version | 8.13 |
| Method | Still on 7.x? You’ll be upgrading by using the tar.gz/zip archive, which involves installing a new Jira instance next to your existing one. We found this method to be the quickest and most reliable for large Jira instances. Already on 8.x? In that case, you can either upgrade by using the tar.gz/zip archive, or upgrade with Zero Downtime Upgrade that's available for Data Center. |
| Planned downtime | If you're upgrading between 7.x to 8.x, the Zero Downtime Upgrade method is not available for Jira Data Center. Downtime duration might depend on how many issues and apps you have. If your Data Center is already on 8.x, you can upgrade with Zero Downtime Upgrade, in which case you don't need to plan downtime. |
Optimize your upgrade process
We want your upgrade to be plain and quick sailing, so here are some tips you can consider to speed up the process:
If you're on 7.x:
Estimate your downtime
- run the upgrade on the test environment to get an estimation of how long your upgrade might take in production. Note that in addition to the downtime related to the usual upgrade tasks, you should plan some extra time for full reindexing.
Optional: Faster reindexing for Jira Data Center
Jira 8.13 brings a completely new index, which means that your old index will be incompatible after the upgrade from Jira 7.13. You will need to reindex, there’s no running away from it. However, we’ve created some procedures for advanced users that will let you speed it up, significantly reducing downtime. Learn more
Upgrading apps
- go to
> Manage apps and look up the suggestions provided by your Universal Plugin Manager (UPM). Some apps have cross-platform compatibility and can be updated even before the upgrade. Update them in advance to speed up the upgrade process. - test upgrading apps in your test environment first. Then, you'll now which apps need upgrading and which need removing before you move to production.
Check custom configuration file list
It might happen that your Jira has files that contain custom configuration. If you've made changes to
- <jira-installation-directory>/atlassian-jira/ directory
- <jira-installation-directory>/conf/server.xml
- <jira-installation-directory>/bin/setenv.sh
we'll automatically transfer these changes to your upgraded Jira before you start it. However, if you've made changes to other files, you'll need to manually transfer them.
- If you're on the latest version of the ASTS plugin, go to
> Applications > Plan your upgrade to see the list of files in which you introduced custom changes.
If you're on 8.x:
Upgrading apps
- go to > Manage apps and look up the suggestions provided by your Universal Plugin Manager (UPM). Some apps can be updated even before the upgrade. Update them in advance to speed up the upgrade process.
- test upgrading apps in your test environment first.
Check custom configuration file list
It might happen that your Jira has files that contain custom configuration. If you've made changes to
- <jira-installation-directory>/atlassian-jira/ directory
- <jira-installation-directory>/conf/server.xml
- <jira-installation-directory>/bin/setenv.sh
we'll automatically transfer these changes to your upgraded Jira before you start it. However, if you've made changes to other files, you'll need to manually transfer them.
- If you're on the latest version of the ASTS plugin, go to > Applications > Plan your upgrade to see the list of files in which you introduced custom changes.
Pre-upgrade steps
Here are the steps you should complete to prepare your current environment for the upgrade.
Testing the upgrade
Create a replica of your Jira instance in a testing environment, so you can test the upgrade.
Preparing for the upgrade
Get Jira ready for the upgrade by running a health check, checking app compatibility, and creating backups.
Upgrading
Want to have a step-by-step overview of your upcoming upgrade tasks? Great! We've laid everything out in this Trello board.
Jira Server
I'm using a stand-alone version of Jira.
Jira Data Center
I have a clustered version of Jira.
Known issues
| Issue | Solution |
|---|---|
| Drop-downs for navigation bar menu items are incorrectly positioned. The issue concerns dynamic dropdown menus and doesn't affect those with static content. | We are planning to fix the issue in one of the upcoming bugfix releases. It seems that the issue appears when a banner is present so closing the banner is a workaround. |
| After upgrading some available sprints are not coming up on search results. It might also happen that the suggestions for the Sprint when users create or edit issues vary between users or the suggestions don't show at all. | We are working to offer a workaround in an upcoming bugfix release. If you have a large number of sprints, make sure to disable the This will not cause the suggestions to show but will prevent performance issues of having all sprints load in the Sprint suggestion drop-down. |