Documentation for JIRA 4.0. Documentation for other versions of JIRA is available too.
This page contains instructions for installing Java and setting JAVA_HOME.
You can skip this page if you are using the Windows Installer.
JIRA requires a Java Development Kit (JDK) version 5 (1.5) or above to run. The JDK may be obtained from Sun's website (get the 'offline' edition if you're using Windows).
If you are running the Sun JRE version 6 (1.6), please ensure that you are running Update 10 or higher.
Linux note: Linux distributions frequently have an open-source implementation of Java called GCJ installed. Do not use this - it is incomplete and will cause JIRA to fail in obscure ways. You can test whether you have the correct Sun Java by running java -version
:
~$ java -version java version "1.6.0" Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0-b105) Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.6.0-b105, mixed mode, sharing)
On recent Linux distributions, Sun's Java can be installed with a command like sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk
(for Ubuntu).
Linux note: On recent X.org-based distros (eg. FC4+) to avoid getting errors like:
java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: /opt/j2sdk1.4.2_11/jre/lib/i386/libawt.so: libXp.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
you will need to install the xorg-x11-deprecated-libs package (Fedora) or equivalent (check Google ).
Once the JDK is installed, you will need to set the JAVA_HOME environment variable, pointing to the root directory of the JDK. Some JDK installers set this automatically (check by typing ' echo %JAVA_HOME%
' in a DOS prompt, or ' echo $JAVA_HOME
' in a shell). If it is unset, set it by hand in the Control Panel.
When the above steps have been done correctly, it should be possible to open a Windows command prompt and type %JAVA_HOME%\bin\java -version
(or "%JAVA_HOME%"\bin\java -version
if your %JAVA_HOME%
value contains spaces) and see output similar to this:
java version "1.6.0_19" Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_19-b04) Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 16.2-b04, mixed mode, sharing)
If, later on when you try to start JIRA, you get the error Windows cannot find '-Xms128m', it is because you have not correctly set JAVA_HOME.