Purpose

For some configurations of Jira, the pre-logon System Dashboard is used as an Information Radiator to show gadget information without requiring a login. In this use case, the login gadget steals precious real estate and also throws off the whole look.  

Solution

The steps below will allow you to disable this system gadget entirely.    If you do this, users would then only be able to login to the site via the /login.jsp page, which they can also reach by clicking the Log In button in the top right corner of that page.

Preparing the jpm.xml

1. Navigate to <jira-install>/atlassian-jira/WEB-INF/classes/
2. Make a backup copy of jpm.xml named jpm.bak
3. Edit the jpm.xml file
   

   1. Find the following stanza:

      <property>
      <key>jira.disable.login.gadget</key>
      <default-value>false</default-value>
      <type>boolean</type>
      <admin-editable>false</admin-editable>
      <sysadmin-editable>false</sysadmin-editable>
      </property>

4. Change the value of <default-value>false</default-value> to <default-value>true</default-value>
5. Change the value of <admin-editable>false</admin-editable> to <admin-editable>true</admin-editable>
6. Change the value of <sysadmin-editable>false</sysadmin-editable> to <sysadmin-editable>true</sysadmin-editable>
7. Save the file

Creating or Editing jira-config.properties

1. Navigate to <jira-home>
2. Check for the presence of a jira-config.properties file (see also Advanced Jira application configuration)
   
   1. If it exists, back it up now.
   2. If not, create a new, blank text file with that name.

3. Add this line to the end of the file:

    jira.disable.login.gadget=true

4. Save the file;
5. Restart Jira to commit changes.

Alternate Solution (Database)

It is also possible to hide the login gadget by setting the jira.disable.login.gadget property in the database, using the following steps. (Note that this method takes precedence over the jpm.xml / jira-config.properties method above, if both are applied together.)

1. Take a backup of your Jira instance.
2. Stop Jira.

3. Run the following SQL query on the Jira database:

   SELECT COUNT(*) FROM propertyentry WHERE property_key = 'jira.disable.login.gadget';

   1. If the result of the query in step 3 was 0, run the following SQL queries:

      INSERT INTO propertynumber VALUES ((SELECT max(id)+1 FROM propertyentry), '1');
      INSERT INTO propertyentry VALUES (
      	(SELECT max(id)+1 FROM propertyentry),
      	'jira.properties',
      	1,
      	'jira.disable.login.gadget',
      	1
      );

   2. If the result of the query in step 3 was 1, run the following SQL query:

      UPDATE propertynumber SET propertyvalue=1 WHERE id=(SELECT id FROM propertyentry WHERE property_key='jira.disable.login.gadget');

4. Start Jira.