Documentation for JIRA 4.1. Documentation for other versions of JIRA is available too.

Trackback linking is a means by which a page can tell another page that it has been linked to. (To learn more about how trackback works, please have a look at the Trackback specification ).

For instance, say that a user writes a URL in a JIRA comment:

If the URL is to a trackback-enabled web application like a weblog, Confluence page or another JIRA site, the linked-to page will be told that it was linked to, and can automatically create a link back to the linker:

Note

When linking to a JIRA instance, make sure its base URL is correct. (To check a JIRA instance's 'Base URL', go to 'General Configuration' under 'Global Settings' in the 'Administration' menu.)

Configuring trackbacks

In JIRA, you can configure whether to:

  • display links to external pages that link to your pages (accept incoming trackback pings)
  • notify external pages that they have been linked to (send outgoing pings)
    The default configuration is to display incoming links, but not notify external pages.

To configure trackbacks:

  1. Log in as a user with the 'JIRA System Administrators' global permission.
  2. Bring up the administration page by clicking either the 'Administration' link on the top bar or the title of the Administration box on the dashboard.
  3. Under the 'Global Settings' sub-menu in the left-hand navigation column, click the 'Trackbacks' link. This will display the 'Trackback Settings' page:
  4. Click the 'Edit Configuration' link.
  5. In the 'Accept Incoming Trackback Pings' field, select 'ON' to enable trackbacks.
  6. In the 'Send Outgoing Trackback Pings' field, either:
    • select 'On for all issues' to always notify external sites that they have been linked to.
    • select 'On for public issues only' to only notify external sites that they have been linked to if the issue is publicly visible.
    • select 'Off' to never notify external sites that they have been linked to.
  7. (Optional) In the 'URL Patterns to Exclude' field, specify the URLs of any sites which you always want to exclude from being notified that they have been linked to. Use regular expressions (one per line), e.g.:
    .server.domain.com..server2.domain.com..domain2.com.
  8. Click the 'Update' button.

Temporarily disabling trackbacks

Trackback pings can be disabled (e.g. during a data import) by setting the jira.trackback.senddisabled=true flag on startup.