Summary

When changing Jira's base URL (something common when migrating environments) or refreshing a test environment with Production data, several places in Jira may contain links to URLs that we should change, too.

Not updating these links may result in users being redirected to the old Jira URL or being redirected back to Production Jira or other Production Apps while browsing Jira in the test environment.

Environment

Any version of Jira from 7.x onwards.

The DML commands on this article were written for the Postgres DB. You may need to tweak them to work on your specific DB.

Solution

The steps ahead presume Load Balancers, internal DNS and reverse proxies have already been configured for the new URL — as well as Jira Tomcat's server.xml under Jira's installation folder.

You may run the commands below for Jira's own URL if it's changed or to update other Apps' URLs (like from a Production Jira Align URL to the Test's URL).

1) Update Jira's base URL

When Jira's started on the new server and responding to the new URL, it'll pop up an alert when logging as Admin about the base URL not being set correctly.
You can either follow the link on the very alert popup or follow this guide on configuring the base URL. Just update it with the new URL and it's done.

• Configuring the Base URL
• You may come across situations where you're unable to edit the Base URL through the UI. For those cases, please review this article to change it directly on the database:
  • Change the Base URL of Jira on the database 

2) Recreate (all) Applications Links

Before the whole migration, it's prudent to access Jira's Application Links and take note of their configuration (which apps are connected and how: OAuth, OAuth with impersonation, etc).

After the migration is completed and Jira's accessible through the new URL, you may recreate the application links.

This should work two-way with Confluence and other Atlassian apps, so you shouldn't need to go through similar steps on all other Atlassian apps.

3) Change URL references in Gadgets and Issue

Text gadgets, issue descriptions, and issue comments can have text that mentions the previous Jira URL.

They should also be updated to prevent errors or misguidances when Jira is used.

Execute the following commands on Jira's DB to update these records:

update gadgetuserpreference set userprefvalue = REPLACE(userprefvalue, 'old-url.com', 'new-url.com') where userprefvalue like '%old-url.com%';

update remotelink set url = replace(url,'old-url.com','new-url.com') where url like '%old-url.com%';

update remotelink set iconurl = replace(iconurl,'old-url.com','new-url.com') where iconurl like '%old-url.com%';

update jiraissue set description = REPLACE(description, 'old-url.com', 'new-url.com') where description like '%old-url.com%';

update jiraaction set actionbody = REPLACE(actionbody, 'old-url.com', 'new-url.com') where actiontype = 'comment' and actionbody like '%old-url.com%';

update customfieldvalue set stringvalue = REPLACE(stringvalue, 'old-url.com', 'new-url.com') where stringvalue like '%old-url.com%';

update customfieldvalue set textvalue = REPLACE(textvalue, 'old-url.com', 'new-url.com') where textvalue like '%old-url.com%';

update "AO_550953_SHORTCUT" set "SHORTCUT_URL" = REPLACE("SHORTCUT_URL", 'old-url.com', 'new-url.com') where "SHORTCUT_URL" like '%old-url.com%';

In all of them, replace 'old-url.com' and 'new-url.com' accordingly.