Problem

The Base URL Health Check verifies if JIRA is able to access its own Base URL. Starting in JIRA 7.1, gadgets charts are generated using Javascript in the browser rather than server-side with Java. This had significant performance improvements as the server was offloading processing to the browsers and resulted in less CPU usage. Part of the change modified the way JIRA previously operated, and now it is required that the server can connect to itself.

Impact

After upgrading to JIRA 7.1 or newer versions, gadget titles start showing as __MSG_gadget.xxxxxxx, __MSG_gadget.activity., __MSG_gadget.filter, _MSG_gadget.project.title_  and so on as per the example below:

For example:

Understanding the Results

Icon	Result	What this means
	JIRA is able to access itself through the configured Base URL	Your dashboard gadgets should be generated and loaded correctly.
	JIRA is not able to access itself through the configured Base URL. This is necessary so that dashboard gadgets can be generated successfully. Please verify the current Base URL and if necessary, review your network configurations to resolve the problem	Your dashboard gadgets may not be loading properly. Please follow the diagnosis and resolution steps below to resolve the problem.

Diagnosis

Environment

• Affects JIRA 7.1.x instances.
• iptables has been configured to forward packets from 80 to 8080 and/or 443 to 8443
• From the JIRA server itself, try curl -v <baseurl> to verify if JIRA is able to communicate with itself.
• Run SSLPoke from the JIRA server itself and see if it returns successfully.
• Additionally run the httpclienttest from the JIRA server itself to confirm if the SSL configuration is okay, as this will verify if you're affected by  JRA-47568 - Getting issue details... STATUS .
• There are application links configured on the instance but they seem to be having some issue.
• As the symptoms for both environments are different, diagnosis and resolution steps are segregated into multiple sections below.
  

When accessing the Dashboard, the gadgets serves a response which is processed by the client (ie the browser) to generate gadgets. Whilst this happens, the server also connects to itself to provide the gadget's translated strings. JIRA uses the URL the instance is connected to, so the JIRA instance needs to be able to access itself.

If it's not able to do so this error will occur. Some known causes are:

• Basic or certificate-based auth on a proxy layer that JIRA is behind
• The domain name is not resolvable
• JIRA is served on an IP that's in a separate restricted subnet to the server JIRA is running on
• JIRA is served with a self-signed certificate that doesn't exist in its own trust store
• There are more than 3 redirects between the entry point and the final JIRA server (this is tested in the base URL check and also configured in our gadgets).

The recommended best practice is to have JIRA served on one domain name only. This can have different IPs (for example internal and external) configured by different DNS, however will only resolve to one domain. For example https://jira.atlassian.com has an external IP of 131.103.28.11 (mapped to by external DNS) and an internal IP of 192.168.1.2 (mapped with an internal DNS). It has one certificate for that FQDN, and all users access it on that domain only.

Resolution

Cause 1: Jira applications with SSL Configured

The following appears in the atlassian-jira.log file:

2016-02-26 14:22:28,843 http-bio-8443-exec-11 ERROR admin 862x395x1 m32d6k xx.xx.xx.xx /secure/MyJiraHome.jspa [c.a.g.r.internal.http.HttpClientFetcher] Unable to retrieve response
javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException: sun.security.validator.ValidatorException: PKIX path building failed: sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilderException: unable to find valid certification path to requested target
	at sun.security.ssl.Alerts.getSSLException(Alerts.java:192)Cause

This is a known problem issue the certificate is not trusted by the Java trust store.

Resolution

1. Follow our instructions in our Unable to connect to SSL services due to "PKIX Path Building Failed" error knowledge base article to resolve the problem.

2. Additionally verify the configuration with httpclienttest as described in the readme of that repository.

Cause 2: JIRA Applications with port forwarding configured

Applies to environments that are using port forwarding, such as iptables:

Cause

If iptables has been configured to forward packets from 80 to 8080 and/or 443 to 8443, you may see gadget titles be broken and show as __MSG_gadget.xxxxxxx.  This can happen if the rules are configured only to forward packets from external sources.  

Resolution:

You need to create a rule both for packets coming froman external IP sourcesAND for local packets eg.

iptables -t nat -I OUTPUT -p tcp -o lo --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 8080

Cause 3: Jira applications with a broken Proxy configuration

Applies to environments configured to use a Web Proxy. This can be determined by checking the "JVM Arguments" in the atlassian-jira.logforan existing proxy configurations.

Cause

JIRA is unable to communicate with itself due to a Web Proxy not able to correctly resolve the JIRA Server.

Resolution

Add the JIRA Server's hostname to the -Dhttp.nonProxyHosts and -Dhttps.nonProxyHosts arguments as in Configure an outbound proxy for use in Jira server.

Cause 4: JIRA configured with Apache in front with BasicAuth password restriction

Cause

JIRA is unable to communicate with itself due to a Web Proxy requiring authentication.

Bug ticket raise JRA-61273 - Getting issue details... STATUS

Resolution

Add the Server IP itself for access without password:

Order Allow,Deny
Allow from <hostname>
Satisfy Any

Resolution 2

If using Shibbolethauthentication ,

1. leave the /rest URLs outside theshibbolethauthentication.
2. /rest URL must not be shibboleth protected.
3. Example :

<LocationMatch "^(/rest)/[^/]+">
AuthType None
Require all granted
</LocationMatch>

<LocationMatch "/">
AuthType Shibboleth
ShibRequireSession On
require valid-user
ShibUseEnvironment On
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</LocationMatch>