Installing JIRA on Linux

This guide describes how to install a new JIRA installation on Linux using the automated 'Linux Installer'. If you are upgrading JIRA, please refer to the Upgrading JIRA guide.

You can also install JIRA from a 'zip' archive — see Installing JIRA from an Archive File on Windows, Linux or Solaris for details. This is useful if you want JIRA to use a pre-existing supported Java platform, since the Linux Installer installs its own JRE to run JIRA.

It is possible that any anti-virus or other Internet security tools installed on your Linux operating system may interfere with the JIRA installation process and prevent the process from completing successfully. If you experience or anticipate experiencing such an issue with your anti-virus/Internet security tool, disable this tool first before proceeding with the JIRA installation.

There are two ways to install JIRA using the Linux Installer:

On this page:

Using the Console Wizard

Use the console wizard if you are installing JIRA on your server for the first time or you wish to specify your installation options.

If you have previously installed JIRA using the installation wizard and wish to re-install JIRA again with the same installation options, you can re-install JIRA in 'unattended mode' without any user input required (see below for details).

1. Download and Install the JIRA 'Linux Installer'

If you execute the Linux Installer with 'root' user privileges, the installer will create and run JIRA using a dedicated user account. You can also execute the Linux Installer without 'root' user privileges, although your installation options will be much more limited and a dedicated user account (to run JIRA) will not be created. To run JIRA as a service, the Linux Installer must be executed with 'root' user privileges.

1. Download the appropriate JIRA 'Linux 64-bit / 32-bit Installer' (.bin) file from the JIRA Download page.
   Please Note:
   • To access the 32-bit installer, you may need to click the 'Show all' link on the 'JIRA Download' page to access the other installation packages.
   • The difference between the 64-bit / 32-bit .bin installers relates to their bundled Java platforms that run JIRA. Bear in mind that a JIRA installation installed using the 64-bit installer may require additional memory (to run at a similar level of performance) to a JIRA installation installed using the 32-bit installer. This is because a 64-bit Java platform's object references are twice the size as those for a 32-bit Java platform.
2. Open a Linux console and change directory (cd) to the '.bin' file's directory.
   If the '.bin' file is not executable after downloading it, make it executable, for example:
   chmod a+x atlassian-jira-X.Y.bin
   (where X.Y represents your version of JIRA)
3. Execute the '.bin' file to start the console wizard.
4. When prompted to choose between 'Express Install', 'Custom Install' or 'Upgrade an existing JIRA installation', choose either the 'Express Install' or 'Custom Install' options:
   • Express Install— If you choose this option, JIRA will be installed with default settings which are shown in the next step of the console wizard.
     Please Note:
     • If you are running the installer with 'root' user privileges, JIRA will be installed as a service.
     • If you want to customise any of these options:
     1. 1. Enter 'e' to exit the console wizard.
        2. Execute the console wizard again (step 3 above).
        3. Choose the 'Custom Install' option instead.
   • Custom Install — If you choose this option, JIRA will prompt you to specify the following options (which are presented during subsequent steps of the console wizard and pre-populated with default values):
   • • The 'Destination Directory' in which to install JIRA.
     • The JIRA Home directory (which must be unique for each JIRA installation).
     • The TCP ports (i.e. an HTTP and a Control port) that JIRA will run through.
     • If you are running the installer with 'root' user privileges, you will be prompted to 'Run JIRA as a service' (recommended). You can also do this manually later, as described in Starting JIRA Automatically on Linux.
5. The console wizard will install JIRA onto your operating system and will start JIRA automatically when the wizard finishes.

Please Note:

• If you executed the Linux Installer with 'root' user privileges, the Linux Installer creates a dedicated Linux user account with username 'jira' and no password, which is used to run JIRA. This account has only:
  
  • Full write access to your JIRA Home Directory.
  • Limited write access to your JIRA Installation Directory.
• If you executed the Linux Installer without 'root' user privileges, be aware that JIRA can still be run with 'root' privileges. However, to protect the security of your operating system, this is not recommended.

2. Start JIRA

If JIRA is not already started, you can start JIRA using the appropriate command at the Linux console.

Once JIRA is started, you can access JIRA from a browser on any computer with network access to your JIRA server.

2.1 Starting and Stopping JIRA manually

In the Linux console, enter the bin subdirectory of your JIRA installation directory and execute the appropriate file:

• start-jira.sh (to start JIRA)
• stop-jira.sh (to stop JIRA)

JIRA will be ready to access (from a browser window) when the following message appears in the application's log file:

*******************************************************
 ... You can now access JIRA through your web browser.
*******************************************************

2.2 Accessing JIRA from a Browser

You can access JIRA from any computer with network access to your JIRA server by opening a supported web browser on the computer and visiting this URL:

• http://<computer_name_or_IP_address>:<HTTP_port_number>

where:

• <computer_name_or_IP_address> is the name or IP address of the computer on which JIRA is installed and
• <HTTP_port_number> is the HTTP port number specified when you installed JIRA (above).

Please Note:

• If JIRA does not appear, you may need to change the port that JIRA runs on.
• Application server logs (i.e. for Apache Tomcat) will be written to the logs/catalina-YYYY-MM-DD.log file within the JIRA Installation Directory.

3. Run the Setup Wizard

See Running the Setup Wizard.

4. Next Steps

• See JIRA 101 to start creating Projects, creating Users, and customising your JIRA instance.
• If you did not install JIRA to run as a service, you will need to start JIRA manually every time you restart your computer. To change your JIRA installation to run as a service, please see Starting JIRA Automatically on Linux.
• To get the most out of JIRA, please see Optimising Performance.

Performing an Unattended Installation

If you have previously installed JIRA using the console wizard (above), you can use a configuration file from this JIRA installation (called response.varfile) to re-install JIRA in 'unattended mode' without any user input required.

Installing JIRA in unattended mode saves you time if your previous JIRA installation was used for testing purposes and you need to install JIRA on multiple server machines based on the same configuration.

Please Note:

• The response.varfile file contains the options specified during the installation wizard steps of your previous JIRA installation. Hence, do not uninstall your previous JIRA installation just yet.
• If you intend to modify the response.varfile file, please ensure all directory paths specified are absolute, for example, sys.installationDir=/opt/atlassian/jira
  Unattended installations will fail if any relative directory paths have been specified in this file.

Download and Run the JIRA 'Linux Installer' in Unattended Mode

1. Download the JIRA 'Linux Installer' (.bin) file from the JIRA Download Center to a suitable location.
2. Open a Linux console.
3. Copy (cp) the file .install4j/response.varfile located in your previous JIRA installation directory, to the same location as the downloaded 'Linux Installer' file.
   You can uninstall your previous JIRA installation after this step. Save your response.varfile if you need to install JIRA on multiple machines.

4. Change directory (cd) to the location of the 'Linux Installer' file and execute the following command:

   atlassian-jira-X.Y.bin -q -varfile response.varfile
   

   Where:

   • X.Y — refers to the version of JIRA you are about to install.
   • -q — instructs the installer to operate in unattended mode (i.e. 'quietly').

   • -varfile response.varfile — specifies the configuration file containing the configuration options used by the installer. The location and name of the configuration file should be specified after the -varfileoption.

5. JIRA will start automatically when the silent installation finishes. Continue from step 2 Starting JIRA (above).