Jira Service Management 5.5.x upgrade notes

Below are some important notes on upgrading to Jira Service Management 5.5.x. For details on the new features and improvements in this release, see:

• Jira Service Management 5.5.x release notes

 Upgrade notes

Jira migrates to Log4j2

To take the extra step and ensure continued compliance, we’ve upgraded Log4j to version 2.17.2.

Since this is a breaking change, some effort may be required to ensure that any existing custom Log4j 1.x configurations are compatible with Jira 9.5:

• If you’re an admin using a custom Log4j 1.x configuration with your Jira instance, you’ll need to adjust the new log4j2.xml file to include those customizations. For more information about configuring Log4j 2, see Migrating from Log4j 1.x to 2.x and Configuring Log4j 2 in the official documentation.

• If you’re an app vendor and your app uses a custom Log4j 1.x configuration, you’ll need to update your code. For more information on what this means for you, see Log4j upgrade details for third-party app vendors.

Support for Java 17 added

We’ve added support for Java 17 to boost Jira performance and strengthen instance stability.

Make sure your Jira apps are updated to work on Java 17 and feel free to set up a new environment for Jira deployment.

H2 database upgraded from 1.4.200 to 2.1.214

We’ve upgraded the embedded database H2 from version 1.4.200 to version 2.1.214. The upgrade has fixed a bunch of vulnerability issues. Make sure you’ve migrated your data to version 2.1.214 manually.

Learn more about how to migrate the data for the smooth upgrade

In-product diagnostics updates: new user interface, REST API, and performance metrics

We’ve made a bunch of updates and improvements to the In-product diagnostics (IPD) tool to help you monitor and maintain your instance performance:

• User interface: You can now manage the IPD monitoring manually in the user interface. By default, the feature is enabled.

• A new REST API endpoint: We’ve added the /rest/api/2/monitoring/ipd endpoint for managing the IPD monitoring.

• New IPD metrics: We’ve added HTTP connection and mail queue metrics for instance diagnostics. The metrics are available through JMX and the log file atlassian-jira-ipd-monitoring.log.

Jira Temporary Directory Cleaner introduced

We’re introducing Jira Temporary Directory Cleaner to solve the issue of instances running out of space. With the help of the feature, Jira will automatically clean its temporary directory during startup.

The Cleaner is disabled by default. To enable it, set the tmpdir.clean.on.startup property to true. You can do it by adding a new argument in the setenv.sh script:
-Dtmpdir.clean.on.startup=true.

 End of support announcements

This release does not include any end of support announcements. For the list of supported platforms, see Supported platforms.

 App developers

See Preparing for Jira 9.5 for any important changes regarding apps.

 Upgrade procedure

To help you upgrade to the latest and greatest:

• See Upgrading Jira applications for complete upgrade procedures, including all available upgrade methods and pre-upgrade steps.
• For a more tailored upgrade, go to Jira administration > Applications > Plan your upgrade. We’ll recommend a version to upgrade to, run pre-upgrade checks, and provide you with a custom upgrade guide with step-by-step instructions.