Installing JIRA on Tomcat 5.5

This section describes how to install JIRA on Tomcat 5.5, a popular open-source server from the Apache Jakarta project.

Tomcat can be downloaded the Apache site.

On this page:

1. Unpack JIRA

2. Configure JIRA

2.1 Database Connection

JIRA needs to be told what type of database you'll be using. The database is specified in $JIRA_INSTALL/edit-webapp/WEB-INF/classes/entityengine.xml . Locate the <datasource> tag near the bottom, and change the field-type-name attribute value:

          <datasource name="defaultDS"
          field-type-name="hsql"
          schema-name="PUBLIC"
          helper-class="org.ofbiz.core.entity.GenericHelperDAO"
          check-on-start="true"
          use-foreign-keys="false"
          use-foreign-key-indices="false"
          check-fks-on-start="false"
          check-fk-indices-on-start="false"
          add-missing-on-start="true">
          <jndi-jdbc jndi-server-name="default"
          jndi-name="java:comp/env/jdbc/JiraDS" />
        </datasource>

Possible values include cloudscape, db2, firebird, hsql, mckoidb, mysql, mssql, oracle, postgres, postgres72, sapdb, and sybase

For PostgreSQL 7.3+ and DB2 you also need to set a schema-name attribute (see the PostgreSQL and DB2 pages).

Also in entityengine.xml , ensure the <transaction-factory>...</transaction-factory> tag contains:

<transaction-factory class="org.ofbiz.core.entity.transaction.JNDIFactory">
        <user-transaction-jndi jndi-server-name="default" jndi-name="java:comp/env/UserTransaction"/>
      <transaction-manager-jndi jndi-server-name="default" jndi-name="java:comp/env/UserTransaction"/>
    </transaction-factory>

More details on JIRA's database access layer are available on the EntityEngine configuration page.

2.2 Set JIRA Home

3. Build JIRA

Now build JIRA by typing build (Windows) or ./build.sh (Unix) on the command line in the $JIRA_INSTALL directory. This will produce the deployable WAR file in the $JIRA_INSTALL/dist-tomcat directory.

4. Update Tomcat Libraries

Tomcat does not come with some libraries required to run JIRA. To fix this, download jira-jars-tomcat5.zip (1.2Mb), and copy the contained jars to Tomcat's common/lib/ directory.

5. Configure Tomcat

A JIRA 'context' now needs to be set up in Tomcat. To do this:

1. Copy dist-tomcat/tomcat-5.5/jira.xml from the built JIRA distribution to your Tomcat's conf/Catalina/localhost/ directory.
2. Customise the copied jira.xml as follows:

   <Context path="/jira" docBase="path/to/atlassian-jira-3.13.war">
     <Resource name="jdbc/JiraDS" auth="Container" type="javax.sql.DataSource"
               username="sa"
               password=""
               driverClassName="org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver"
               url="jdbc:hsqldb:path/to/database/jiradb/"
               minEvictableIdleTimeMillis="4000"
               timeBetweenEvictionRunsMillis="5000"/>
   
     <Resource name="UserTransaction" auth="Container" type="javax.transaction.UserTransaction"
       factory="org.objectweb.jotm.UserTransactionFactory" jotm.timeout="60"/>
     <Manager pathname=""/>
   </Context>
   

   The paths (denoted as path/to/) will be correct by default, assuming you want to deploy the .war from the dist-tomcat/ directory.

   If you are not using hsqldb, make sure you comment out the minEvictableIdleTimeMillis and timeBetweenEvictionRunsMillis params, or JIRA will run slower than normal.

   If you are installing in Windows, make sure that the paths you specify for the location of the WAR file and database are full paths with drive letters (e.g. c:\yourdb\tomcatdb). N.B. the last part of the path is the name of the database and is not a directory.The above example assumes you are using hsql (an in-memory database — a good choice for evaluation purposes). Here is an example using MySQL:

   <Context path="/jira" docBase="path/to/atlassian-jira-3.13.war">
     <Resource name="jdbc/JiraDS" auth="Container" type="javax.sql.DataSource"
       username="jirauser"
       password="mypassword"
       driverClassName="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"
       url="jdbc:mysql://localhost/jiradb?autoReconnect=true&amp;useUnicode=true&amp;characterEncoding=UTF8"
       maxActive="20"
       validationQuery="select 1"/>
     <Resource name="UserTransaction" auth="Container" type="javax.transaction.UserTransaction"
       factory="org.objectweb.jotm.UserTransactionFactory"
       jotm.timeout="60"/>
     <Manager pathname=""/>
   </Context>
   

   Notice the lack of minEvictableIdleTimeMillis and timeBetweenEvictionRunsMillis parameters — those should only be used with hsql.
3. If using a different database than hsql,
   • copy the JDBC driver jar to common/lib/ (see the database configuration guide); and
   • ensure you have updated the field-type-name (see above).

6. Modify Tomcat server.xml

In order for JIRA to correctly display internationalised characters in user and group names you need to modify your Tomcat distributions conf/server.xml file. You need to set the property URIEncoding="UTF-8" within the connector definition for your http protocol. The connector block should look very much like this:

<Connector port="8080" maxHttpHeaderSize="8192"
    maxThreads="150" minSpareThreads="25" maxSpareThreads="75"
    enableLookups="false" redirectPort="8443" acceptCount="100"
    connectionTimeout="20000" disableUploadTimeout="true"/>

You should modify the block to contain the addition of the URIEncoding property:

<Connector port="8080" maxHttpHeaderSize="8192"
    maxThreads="150" minSpareThreads="25" maxSpareThreads="75"
    enableLookups="false" redirectPort="8443" acceptCount="100"
    connectionTimeout="20000" disableUploadTimeout="true" URIEncoding="UTF-8"/>

7. Fix Tomcat memory settings

Tomcat has a memory leak where large JSP page requests can fill up memory. To avoid this, edit Tomcat's bin/setenv.sh (create it if it does not exist) and set:

export CATALINA_OPTS="$CATALINA_OPTS -Dorg.apache.jasper.runtime.BodyContentImpl.LIMIT_BUFFER=true"

or when installed as a Windows service, run:

tomcat5 //US//JIRA ++JvmOptions="-Dorg.apache.jasper.runtime.BodyContentImpl.LIMIT_BUFFER=true

For other environments, and for more info on memory settings, see the memory settings page.

8. Set mail.mime.decodeparameters

mail.mime.decodeparameters=true

9. Start Tomcat

JIRA should now be ready to run in Tomcat. To start using JIRA, first start (or restart) the Tomcat server with Tomcat's bin/startup.(sh|bat) scripts, and point your browser to http://localhost:8080/jira

You should now see the Setup Wizard, which will take you through the brief setup procedure.

Troubleshooting

It is easy to make a mistake in this process, and even more so if you are trying to connect to a database other than hsqldb. First, check that you have followed the process described above:

• If you are using an external database (not hsqldb), have you set the field-type-name attribute in $JIRA_INSTALL/edit-webapp/WEB-INF/classes/entityengine.xml ? (step 2)
• Have you previously started JIRA with an incorrect field-type-name value? If so, the database schema would have been created incorrectly.
• If you have made changes to $JIRA_INSTALL/edit-webapp/WEB-INF/classes/entityengine.xml (step 2) and re-run the build script (step 3), but your changes are not being picked up, delete the Tomcat webapps/jira directory, then restart JIRA. It would seem that in some circumstances Tomcat does not correctly re-expand the web application.
• Have you copied the extra Tomcat jars (step 4)? Check if you have common/lib/objectweb-datasource-1.4.3.jar present.
• If using an external database, did you copy the JDBC driver jar to common/lib/ (step 5)?
• Is the path to the .war file in conf/Catalina/localhost/jira.xml correct?
• Have you copied the .war file to Tomcat's webapps/ directory? This is almost guaranteed to cause pain - please move it elsewhere, and delete any JIRA subdirectories created in webapps/ from previous Tomcat starts.
• Have you configured JIRA centrally in conf/server.xml instead of in conf/Catalina/localhost/jira.xml ? This is fine, but then be sure you don't also have a conf/Catalina/localhost/jira.xml present.
• The log files are usually vital to debugging problems. On Windows, these will appear in the console window that loads when running startup.bat , or in one of the log files in the logs/ directory. On Linux/Unix, logs will appear in a log file in logs/, usually logs/catalina.out. Check the log file for errors after startup.
• If you experience high memory usage / memory leaks (e.g. OutOfMemoryError), you may wish to set the system property -Dorg.apache.jasper.runtime.BodyContentImpl.LIMIT_BUFFER=true in setenv.sh / setenv.bat. This property is only valid for Tomcat 5.5.15 and later. For more information please see JRA-10145.
• If the connection to your MySQL database is dropping, you will need to set up Tomcat to survive connection closures.
• Please note: The build.xml file is an Ant file, which when invoked with the build.(sh|bat) script, will construct a deployable webapp. The build.xml file does this by copying the contents of the webapp/ directory, and overwriting it with the contents of edit-webapp/. Thus, never edit files in the webapp/ directory! If a file needs editing, first copy it from webapp/path/to/file to edit-webapp/path/to/file, and edit it there.

If you're stuck, please raise a support request, and attach your logs, configuration files, plus anything else relevant, and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.

User-contributed notes

Have experiences to share with Tomcat 5.5.x and JIRA? We welcome your thoughts. Please see the user-contributed Tomcat 5.5.x notes.