Explanation

Although we cannot directly recommend specific Anti-Virus software to use with JIRA applications we would like to advise our customers that if you are experiencing slowness with your JIRA application, try running it with virus checking disabled. As JIRA applications create many temporary files it is possible that due to disk I/O and resourcing, virus checking software can slow JIRA applications dramatically.

Most anti-virus software causes a dramatic increase in disk IO and CPU usage when used with JIRA applications.

In some cases, even disabling the antivirus is not enough, and the server has to be restarted or even need have the anti-virus uninstalled. This happens because even though the AV service is disabled, the filter drivers are still running, and drivers run in kernel mode.

Examples

McAfee's NetShield 4.5 in particular claims to let you exclude folders from scanning, though in previous investigations we have found this not to be the case - upgrade to version 7.0.0 to fix this.

McAfee Agent 5.x has also been demonstrated to have a decremental effect on particularly search index performance due to the overhead added to open/close file operations even on directories explicitly excluded from scanning. 

Symantec Anti-Virus should be uninstalled, as our experiences with it have shown it to cause dramatic performance degradation even when the service is turned off.

Workaround

Depending on the antivirus software, it may be possible to exclude certain files from scanning.

• Exclude <JIRA_Home> and <JIRA_Install> from antivirus scanning
• Alternatively, exclude Jira's process. Its path should be:

  • <JIRA_Install>\bin\tomcat8.exe.64 if configured as a service

  • <JIRA_Install>\jre\bin\java.exe if started manually, with start-jira.bat
     Note that the java.exe path could change if another Java version is installed. If using the start-jira.bat script to start Jira, please double-check the path.
• As noted above, Symantec Anti-Virus should be uninstalled
• If using McAfee Antivirus, ensure that the Jira's Java/Tomcat process is specified as a low-risk process in McAfee's On-Access scanner settings as recommended in Slow performance with Java-based applications when Endpoint Security or VirusScan Enterprise is installed
  

Some Antivirus software may continue to impact JIRA applications even if these folders are excluded. If slowness is experienced, try running JIRA applications with virus checking disabled.