Upgrading JIRA

Please read/perform all steps and sub-steps in consecutive order.

1. Before You Start

1. You will need current software maintenance  to perform the upgrade. If you are unsure, confirm the following:
   • Your license support period is still valid.
   • If your current license has expired but you have a new license with you, please update your license in JIRA.
     If you forget to do this and your license has expired, you will receive errors during the upgrade process. Refer to the instructions on upgrading beyond current license period.
2. Read the release notes and upgrade guide  for the version of JIRA you are upgrading to. The upgrade guide (in particular) contains important information that may be relevant to your JIRA installation.
   • If you plan to skip a few JIRA versions for your next JIRA upgrade, we strongly recommend that you read the upgrade guides for all major versions between your current version and the version to which you are upgrading. Refer to Important Version-Specific Upgrade Notes for quick links to these guides.
3. Confirm that your operating system, database, other applicable platforms and hardware still comply with the requirements for JIRA 4.4.x. Newer versions of JIRA may have different requirements and supported platforms to previous JIRA versions.
   The End of Support Announcements for JIRA page also has important information regarding platform support for future versions of JIRA.
4. Some anti-virus or other Internet security tools may interfere with the JIRA upgrade 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 upgrade.
5. Check for any known issues in the JIRA Knowledge Base.
6. If you have installed any additional JIRA plugins (i.e. not included with JIRA), please verify that they will be compatible with the version of JIRA you are upgrading to. You can find a plugin's compatibility information from the the plugin's home page on the Atlassian Plugin Exchange. Once you have confirmed the availability of compatible versions, you should upgrade your plugins after successfully upgrading JIRA. This can be done via the 'Plugin Repository' in your Administration Console.
7. Test first!— We strongly recommend performing your upgrade in a test environment first. Do not upgrade your production JIRA server until you are satisfied that your test environment upgrade has been successful.
   • If you have any problems with your test environment upgrade which you cannot resolve, create an issue at our support site so that we can assist you.
   • If you have any problems during the upgrade of your production JIRA server, do not allow your users to start using this server. Instead:
     • Continue to use your old JIRA server — this will help ensure that you do not lose production data.
     • Also create an issue at our support site so that we can help you resolve the problems with production JIRA upgrade.

2. Upgrade Overview

The upgrade feature of the Linux and Windows Installers, automates the following tasks for you:

1. Backs up the Installation and Home Directories of the existing JIRA installation to be upgraded.
2. Installs JIRA 4.4.x whilst migrating the following from your existing JIRA installation to the new JIRA 4.4.xinstallation:
   • Legacy database configurations defined as a datasource within the application server (used in JIRA 4.3.x and earlier) to the new database configuration used in JIRA 4.4 and later. See JIRA 4.4 Upgrade Notes for details.
   • TCP port values in your existing JIRA installation's server.xml file. Be aware that other configurations or customisations in this file are not migrated.
   • Custom values in your existing JIRA installation's jira-application.properties and setenv.sh / setenv.bat files.
     Be aware that in the setenv.sh / setenv.batfile, only the following values are migrated:
     • JVM_SUPPORT_RECOMMENDED_ARGS
     • JVM_MINIMUM_MEMORY
     • JVM_MAXIMUM_MEMORY
     • JIRA_MAX_PERM_SIZE

The upgrade feature detects and notifies you of any files (other than jira-application.properties and setenv.sh / setenv.bat) in the atlassian-jira subdirectory of your existing JIRA Installation Directory, which had been deleted, added or modified from a 'default' JIRA installation. This informs you of any customisations you will need to migrate manually over to your upgraded JIRA installation directory.

The upgrade feature also re-uses your existing JIRA Home Directory so that any key data stored in this directory from your previous JIRA installation will be retained after the JIRA upgrade.

Please Note:

• The upgrade process requests that you conduct a backup of your database using your database's backup utilities. If your database does not support online backups, you can stop the upgrade process, shut down JIRA, perform your database backup and then restart the upgrade process to continue on.
• If you have made customisations to your seraph-config.xml file or any other file customisations in your JIRA installation directory which are not handled by the upgrade wizard, these must be migrated manually.
• If your attachments and index files are located outside your JIRA Home Directory, then backups of these directories must be performed manually.

3. Performing the Upgrade

Refer to the appropriate upgrade instructions below for your operating system:

• Windows
• Linux

Upgrading JIRA on Windows

1. Download the JIRA Standalone 'Windows Installer' (.exe) file (for the new version of JIRA) from the JIRA Download Center.
2. Run the '.exe' file to start the upgrade wizard.
   If a Windows 7 (or Vista) 'User Account Control' dialog box requests if you want to allow the upgrade wizard to make changes to your computer, specify 'Yes'. If you do not, the installation wizard will have restricted access to your operating system and any subsequent installation options will be limited.
3. At the 'Upgrading JIRA?' step, choose the 'Upgrade an existing JIRA installation' option.
4. In the 'Existing JIRA installation directory' field, specify the JIRA Installation Directory of your JIRA installation to be upgraded.
   The upgrade wizard will attempt to find an existing JIRA installation and use its location to pre-populate this field. However, always verify this location, particularly if you have multiple JIRA installations running on the same machine.
5. During subsequent steps of the upgrade wizard, you will be prompted to specify or do the following options:
   1. At the 'Back up JIRA directories' step, ensure the 'Back up these directories' option is selected. This creates 'zip' archive file backups of your existing JIRA Installation and JIRA Home Directories in their respective parent directory locations.
      Please Note:
      • Choosing this option is strongly recommended!
      • At this point, the upgrade wizard notes any customisations in your existing JIRA Installation Directory which it cannot automatically migrate to your upgraded JIRA installation. If you are informed of any files containing such customisations, please make a note of these files as you will need to manually migrate their customisations (which are not mentioned in the overview above) to your upgraded JIRA installation. One relatively common customisation that the upgrade wizard cannot automatically migrate is an SSL configuration defined in the conf/server.xml file of the JIRA Installation Directory.
   2. At the 'Upgrade Check List' step, back up your external database and check that any non-bundled plugins will be compatible with your upgraded JIRA version. You may have already conducted the latter (in step 5 of the Before You Start section above).
   3. Upon clicking 'Next', your existing JIRA installation will be shut down if it is still running. The upgrade wizard will then:
      1. Back up your existing JIRA installation.
      2. Delete the contents of the existing JIRA Installation Directory.
      3. Install the new version of JIRA to the existing JIRA Installation Directory.
      4. Starts your new (upgraded) JIRA installation.
         If you noted any files that contain customisations which must be migrated manually to your upgraded JIRA installation (above), then:
         1. Stop the upgraded JIRA installation.
         2. Migrate the customisations from these files into the upgraded JIRA Installation Directory.
         3. Restart the upgraded JIRA installation.
6. At the last step of the upgrade wizard, select the option to launch the upgraded JIRA installation in a browser so you can check the upgrade.

Congratulations, you have completed upgrading your JIRA installation on Windows!

Upgrading JIRA on Linux

1. Download the appropriate JIRA Standalone 'Linux 64-bit / 32-bit Installer' (.bin) file that suits your operating system (for the new version of JIRA) from the JIRA Download Center.
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 upgrade wizard.
4. When prompted to choose between creating a new JIRA installation or upgrading an existing installation, choose the 'Upgrade an existing JIRA installation' option.
5. Specify the JIRA Installation Directory of your JIRA installation to be upgraded.
   The upgrade wizard will attempt to find an existing JIRA installation and will provide its location as a choice. However, always verify this location, particularly if you have multiple JIRA installations running on the same machine.
6. During subsequent steps of the upgrade wizard, you will be prompted to specify or do the following options:
   1. Choose the option to back up JIRA's directories. This creates 'zip' archive file backups of your existing JIRA Installation and JIRA Home Directories in their respective parent directory locations.
      Please Note:
      • Choosing this option is strongly recommended!
      • At this point, the upgrade wizard notes any customisations in your existing JIRA Installation Directory which it cannot automatically migrate to your upgraded JIRA installation. If you are informed of any files containing such customisations, please make a note of these files as you will need to manually migrate their customisations (which are not mentioned in the overview above) to your upgraded JIRA installation. One relatively common customisation that the upgrade wizard cannot automatically migrate is an SSL configuration defined in the conf/server.xml file of the JIRA Installation Directory.
   2. At the 'Upgrade Check List' step, back up your external database and check that any non-bundled plugins will be compatible with your upgraded JIRA version. You may have already conducted the latter (in step 5 of the Before You Start section above).
   3. Upon proceeding, your existing JIRA installation will be shut down if it is still running. The upgrade wizard will then:
      1. Back up your existing JIRA installation.
      2. Delete the contents of the existing JIRA installation directory.
      3. Install the new version of JIRA to the existing JIRA installation directory.
      4. Starts your new (upgraded) JIRA installation.
         If you noted any files that contain customisations which must be migrated manually to your upgraded JIRA installation (above), then:
         1. Stop the upgraded JIRA installation.
         2. Migrate the customisations from these files into the upgraded JIRA Installation Directory.
         3. Restart the upgraded JIRA installation.
7. The last step of the upgrade wizard provides you with a link to launch the upgraded JIRA installation in a browser, so you can check the upgrade.

Congratulations, you have completed upgrading your JIRA installation on Linux!

Upgrade Check List

The upgrade wizard requests that you perform the following tasks before it actually commences the upgrade of your existing JIRA installation.

Back Up Your External Database

Perform a backup of your external database (using your database's native backup tools) and verify that the backup was created correctly.

• If your database's native backup tools support 'online backups' (i.e. which would typically create a 'snapshot' of your JIRA database while the database is still in use), you can leave the upgrade wizard running while you perform the database backup and then continue on with the wizard after verifying that the database backup was created correctly.
• If your database's native backup tools do not allow you to perform an 'online backup' of your JIRA database, you should:
  1. Quit the upgrade wizard now.
  2. Prevent users from updating your existing JIRA data (to ensure structural consistency of your database backup) by temporarily restricting access to JIRA. Refer to the Preventing users from accessing JIRA during backups page for more information. (To access this page in the documentation for another version of JIRA, click the documentation link for your version of JIRA at the top of the left Table of Contents column and use the search box below to find this page.)
  3. Use your database's native backup tools to perform an 'offline backup' of your JIRA database and verify that this backup was created correctly.
  4. Re-run the Linux / Windows Installer to start the upgrade wizard again and continue from where you left off.
• JIRA's 'internal' database is HSQLDB, which should be used for evaluating JIRA only. If you happen to accidentally use the HSQLDB database for a production system, quit the upgrade wizard now and use the Migrating JIRA to Another Server procedure to upgrade JIRA.

Inconsistent database backups may not restore correctly! If you are unfamiliar with your database's native backup/restore facilities, then before proceeding, test your database backup's integrity by:

• restoring the database backup to a different (test) system and
• connecting a test instance of your current JIRA version to this restored database.

Alternatively, use the Migrating JIRA to Another Server procedure to upgrade JIRA instead.

Check Plugin Compatibility

As you may have already done in point 5 of the Before You Start section above, if you have installed any additional JIRA plugins (i.e. not included with JIRA), please verify that they will be compatible with the version of JIRA you are upgrading to. You can find a plugin's compatibility information from the the plugin's home page on the Atlassian Plugin Exchange. Once you have confirmed the availability of compatible versions, you should upgrade your plugins after successfully upgrading JIRA. This can be done via the 'Plugin Repository' in JIRA's Administration Area.