Installing JIRA Standalone on Mac OS X

Install

JIRA running on Mac OS X should only be used for evaluation purposes!

Mac OS X is not a supported operating system for the JIRA server because Oracle JDK and JRE (formerly Sun JDK and JRE), which are the only supported Java platforms for JIRA, are not available for this operating system. Mac OS X is packaged with a JDK optimised for its hardware.

Please note:

If you encounter problems with your JIRA server running on Mac OS X, they may not be fixed as we do not test JIRA with unsupported Java platforms.
However, JIRA users can still access your JIRA server through a supported browser on Mac OS X.

To install JIRA Standalone on Mac OS X, follow these steps:

Before you begin

Please ensure that you have set JAVA_HOME. (You don't need to install Java as it comes with Mac OS X.)

1. Download and Install JIRA Standalone

Download the JIRA Standalone TAR (.GZ) file here.
Unzip the downloaded file.

2. Set JIRA Home

To specify the location of your JIRA Home Directory:

Edit the jira-application.properties file and set the value of the 'jira.home' property to the desired location for your JIRA Home Directory.
See the JIRA Installation Directory page to find where this file is located.
Use the JIRA Configuration Tool (available in JIRA Standalone only) to change the location of your JIRA Home Directory.
Set an environment variable named JIRA_HOME in your operating system whose value is the location of your JIRA Home Directory. To do this, do one of the following:
- Enter the following command at a shell/console prompt before running JIRA:
  - export JIRA_HOME=/path/to/jira/home
- Specify the command above in a script used to start JIRA.

You can specify any location on a disk for your JIRA home directory. Please be sure to specify an absolute path.

Please note that you cannot use the same JIRA home directory for multiple instances of JIRA. We recommend locating your JIRA Home Directory completely independently of the JIRA Installation Directory (i.e. not nesting one within the other) as this will minimise information being lost during major operations (e.g. backing up and restoring instances).

3. Create a Dedicated User Account on the Operating System to Run JIRA

A dedicated user should be created to run JIRA, as JIRA runs as the user it is invoked under and therefore can potentially be abused. For example:

If your operating system is *nix-based (for example, Linux or Solaris), type the following in a console:
$ sudo /usr/sbin/useradd --create-home --comment "Account for running JIRA" --shell /bin/bash jira

If your operating system is Windows:
1. Create the dedicated user account by either:
  - Typing the following at the Windows command line:
    > net user jira mypassword /add /comment:"Account for running JIRA"
    (This creates a user account with user name 'jira' and password 'mypassword'. You should choose your own password.)
  - Opening the Windows 'Computer Management' console to add your 'jira' user with its own password.
2. (Optional) Use the Windows 'Computer Management' console to remove the 'jira' user's membership of all unnecessary Windows groups, such as the default 'Users' group.
  If Windows is operating under a Microsoft Active Directory, ask your Active Directory administrator to create your 'jira' account (with no prior privileges).

Ensure that only the following directories can be written to by this dedicated user account (e.g. 'jira'):

The following subdirectories of your JIRA Installation Directory:
- logs
- temp
- work
Your JIRA Home directory.

Do not make the JIRA Installation Directory itself writeable by the dedicated user account.

4. Start JIRA

Run bin/startup.sh to start JIRA.

JIRA will be launched in a black 'Tomcat' window (do not close this window). Wait until the startup messages have finished.

To access JIRA, go to your web browser and type this address: http://localhost:8080.

If JIRA does not appear, you may need to change the port that JIRA runs on.

If something goes wrong, please verify that Java is installed correctly. If the problem persists, please contact us — we're happy to help.

5. Run the Setup Wizard

See Running the Setup Wizard.

Next Steps

See JIRA 101 to start creating Projects, creating Users, and customising your JIRA instance.
By default, JIRA Standalone uses the standard Tomcat port (i.e. 8080). If you need another application to run on that port, either now or in the future, please see Changing JIRA Standalone's port.
As part of its installation process, JIRA Standalone automatically installs, configures and connects itself to an HSQLDB database. This is fine for evaluation purposes, however HSQLDB is prone to data corruption. For production installations, we strongly recommend that you connect JIRA to an external database.
To get the most out of JIRA, please see Optimising Performance.

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