JIRA Requirements

JIRA Client/Server Software Requirements

Please read the Supported Platforms page for JIRA, which lists the required server and client software supported by JIRA 5.1.x, including:

• Browsers (client-side)
• Java platforms (JDK/JRE) (server-side)
• Operating systems (server-side)
• Application servers (if you are installing the JIRA WAR distribution) (server-side)
• Databases (server-side)

Please also read the information below regarding server and client software requirements for JIRA.

1. Browser

If you have disabled JavaScript in your browser or are using a script blocking tool like NoScript, you must enable your browser to execute JavaScript from JIRA to access JIRA's full functionality.

2. Java

JIRA requires a Java Developers Kit (JDK) or Java Runtime Environment (JRE) platform to be installed on your server's operating system.

If you intend to use the Windows Installer or Linux Installer to install JIRA, there is no need to install and configure a separate JDK/JRE since these executable files will install and configure their own JRE to run JIRA.

If, however, you intend to install JIRA from an archive or you plan to install the JIRA WAR distribution, then you will first need to install a supported Java platform. (Refer to Supported Platforms for supported Java Platforms). For instructions on how to install a supported Java platform for JIRA, please refer to Installing Java.

Please Note:

• Currently, Oracle JDK/JRE (formerly Sun JDK/JRE) is available for Windows (32-bit + 64-bit), Linux (32-bit + 64-bit) and Solaris Platforms (32-bit + 64-bit).
  Mac OS X systems are packaged with a JDK optimised for their hardware and operating systems. However, these JDKs are not supported by JIRA.
• A JIRA installation running on a 64-bit Java platform may require additional memory (to run at a similar level of performance) to a JIRA installation running on a 32-bit Java platform.
  This is because a 64-bit Java platform's object references are twice the size as those for a 32-bit Java platform.

3. Application Server

JIRA is a web application that requires an application server. However, this requirement differs based on the type of JIRA distribution you intend to install:

• 'Recommended' JIRA distributions (installed using 'Windows Installer', 'Linux Installer' or from an 'Archive File') are pre-configured with Apache Tomcat, which is a stable, lightweight and fast-performing application server. (There is no need to install a separate application server if you intend to install one of these recommended JIRA distributions.)
• The JIRA WAR distribution can be installed into an application server (supported by Atlassian), provided this application server is compatible with your operating system and Java platform. You must manually configure your JIRA WAR installation to operate with an existing application server installation.

4. Database

JIRA requires a relational database to store its issue data. JIRA supports most popular relational database servers, so we suggest using the one that you are most comfortable with administering. JIRA ships pre-configured with the HSQLDB database, which is suitable for evaluation purposes only, since HSQLDB is prone to database corruption.

Hence, if you intend to use JIRA in a production environment, we strongly recommend that you connect JIRA to an enterprise database (supported by Atlassian).

JIRA Server Hardware Recommendations

JIRA Server Hardware Recommendation for Evaluation

During evaluation, JIRA will run well on any reasonably fast workstation computer (eg. something purchased within the last two years). Memory requirements depend on how many projects and issues you will store, but 300MB – 1GB (of Java heap size) is enough for most evaluation purposes.

 There are two ways to evaluate JIRA:

1. Start immediately with JIRA OnDemand and then migrate to a local production server later, or simply continue to use JIRA OnDemand.
2. Install JIRA on a local computer and then migrate this to a production server later.

JIRA Server Hardware Recommendation for Production

The hardware required to run JIRA in production depends on a number of different JIRA configurations (eg. projects, issues, custom fields, permissions, etc) as well as the maximum number of concurrent requests that the system will experience during peak hours. Here are some general guide lines:

• For a small number of projects (10-20) with 1,000 to 5,000 issues in total and about 100-200 users, a recent server (multicore CPU) with 2 GB of available RAM and a reasonably fast hard drive (7200rpm or faster) should cater for your needs.
• For a greater number of issues adding more memory will help. We have reports that having 2GB of RAM to JIRA is sufficient for instances with around 200,000 issues. If in doubt, allocate more memory than you think you need.
• If your system will experience a large number of concurrent requests, running JIRA on a multicore CPU machine will increase the concurrency of processing the requests and therefore speed up the response time for your users.
• For reference we have a server that has a 16 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5520 @ 2.27GHz with 32GB of RAM. This server runs Apache, various monitoring systems, and two JIRA instances:
  
  • Our public JIRA site that has approximately: 145,000 issues, 255,000 comments, 120 custom fields, and 115 projects. 
  • Our support JIRA site that has approximately: 285,000 issues, 2,500,000 comments, 75 custom fields, and 22 projects.

Please note that performance heavily depends on your dimensions and your usage pattern, much more than what is simply covered here. Therefore we have written a guide on the different methods you can use to scale JIRA in your environment. 

A quick note that your JIRA database's size is predominantly dominated by these three large tables: change items, comments and issues stored in your JIRA instance. Also, the type of custom fields and the values they hold may also increase the size of your JIRA database, eg. a free text custom field that is on every issue with grow the database size if the value of that field is large.

 Please Note: JIRA requires access to a local disk for certain functionality. If JIRA does not have read and write access to a local disk, searching and saving/accessing attachments will not work.

 While some of our customers run JIRA on SPARC-based hardware, Atlassian only officially supports JIRA running on x86 hardware and 64-bit derivatives of x86 hardware.

Next Steps

Install JIRA.