Now that you have a good understanding of the overall architecture of JIRA, the basic system requirements, and the various installation options, we are ready to deploy our own JIRA instances.
In the following exercise, we will be installing and configuring a fresh JIRA instance that will be ready for a small production team. We will be performing our installation on a Windows platform with a MySQL database server. If you are planning to use a different platform or database, please refer to the vendor documentation on installing the required software for your platform.
In this exercise, you will:
Install a fresh instance of JIRA
Connect JIRA to a MySQL database
We will continue to use this JIRA instance in our subsequent chapters and exercises as we build up our help desk implementation.
For our deployment, we will be using the following:
JIRA standalone distribution 6.3.1
MySQL 5.6.19
Microsoft Windows 7
Since we will be using the installer package with Java bundled, you can skip this section. If you are using the ZIP archive or WAR distribution, you need to make sure you have Java installed on your system.
JIRA 6 requires Java Runtime Environment (JRE) version 7 or a newer run. You can verify the version of Java you have by running the following command in a Command Prompt:
java -version
The preceding command tells us which version of Java is running on your system as shown in the following screenshot:
If you do not see a similar output, then chances are you do not have Java installed. You will need to perform the following steps to set up your Java environment:
To install JDK on your system, simply perform the following steps:
Download the latest JDK from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html.
Double-click on the downloaded installation file to start the installation wizard.
Select where you would like to install Java, or you can simply accept the default values. The location where you install JDK will be referred to as
JAVA_HOMEfor the rest of the book.Create a new environment variable named
JAVA_HOMEwith the value set to the full path of where you installed Java. You can do this as follows:Open the System Properties window by holding down your Windows key and press the Pause key on your keyboard.
Select the Advanced system settings option.
Click the Environment Variable button from the new popup.
Edit the PATH environment variable and append the following to the end of its current value:
;%JAVA_HOME%\binTest the installation by typing the following command in a new command prompt:
java -version
This will display the version of Java installed if everything is done correctly. In Windows, you have to start a new command prompt after you have added the environment variable to see the change.
The next step is to prepare an enterprise database for your JIRA installation. JIRA requires a fresh database. If during the installation process, JIRA detects that the target database already contains any data, it will not proceed. If you already have a database system installed, then you may skip this section.
To install MySQL, simply perform the following steps:
Download MySQL from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads, select MySQL Community Server, and then select the MSI installer for Windows.
Double-click on the downloaded installation file to start the installation wizard.
Click on Install MySQL Products on the welcome screen.
Read and accept the license agreement and click the Next button.
Select the Server only option on the next screen. If you are an experienced database administrator, you can choose to customize your installation. Otherwise, just accept the default values for all subsequent screens.
Configure the MySQL root user password. The username will be
root. Do not lose this password, as we will be using it in the next section.Complete the configuration wizard by accepting the default values.
Now that you have MySQL installed, you need to first create a user for JIRA to connect MySQL with, and then create a fresh database for JIRA to store all its data:
Start the MySQL Command Line Client by navigating to Start | All Programs | MySQL | MySQL Server 5.6 | MySQL 5.6 Command Line Client.
Enter your MySQL root user password you set during installation.
Use the following command to create a database:
create database jiradb character set utf8;Here, we are creating a database called
jiradb. You can name the database anything you like. As you will see later in this chapter, this name will be referenced when you connect JIRA to MySQL. We have also set the database to use UTF-8 character encoding, as this is a requirement for JIRA. You need to ensure that the database uses the InnoDB storage engine to avoid data corruption, by using the following command:grant all on jiradb.* to 'jirauser'@'localhost' identified by 'jirauser';We are doing several things here. First, we create a user called
jirauserand assign the passwordjirauserto him. You should change the username and password to something else.We have also granted all the privileges to the user for the
jiradbdatabase that we just created so that the user can perform database operations, such as create/drop tables and insert/delete data. If you have named your database something other thanjiradbin step 5, then make sure you change the command so that it uses your database name.This allows you to control the fact that only authorized users (specified in the preceding command) are able to access the JIRA database to ensure data security and integrity.
To verify your setup, exit the current interactive session by issuing the following command:
quit;Start a new interactive session with your newly created user:
mysql –u jirauser –pYou will be prompted for a password, which you have set up in the preceding command as
jirauser.Use the following command:
show databases;This will list all the databases that are currently accessible by the logged-in user. You should see
jiradbamong the list of databases.Examine the
jiradbdatabase by issuing the following commands:use jiradb; show tables;
The first command connects you to the
jiradbdatabase, so all of your subsequent commands will be executed against the correct database.The second command lists all the tables that exist in the
jiradbdatabase. Right now, the list should be empty, since tables have been created for JIRA, but don't worry— as soon as we connect to JIRA, all the tables will automatically be created.
With the Java environment and database prepared, you can now move on to installing JIRA. Normally, there are only two steps:
The first step is to download the latest stable release of JIRA. You can download Atlassian JIRA from http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/download.
The Atlassian website will detect the operating system you are using and automatically suggest the installation package for you to download. If you intend to install JIRA on a different operating system than the one you are currently on, make sure you select the correct operating system package.
As mentioned earlier, with Windows, there is a Windows installer package and a self-extracting ZIP package. For the purpose of this exercise, we will use the installer package (Windows 64-bit Installer):
Double-click on the downloaded installation file to start the installation wizard, and click the Next button to continue.
Select the Custom Install option and click the Next button to continue. Using the custom installation will let us decide where to install JIRA and also many configuration options.
Select the directory where JIRA will be installed. This will become the
JIRA_INSTALLdirectory. Click the Next button to continue.
Select where JIRA will store its data files, such as attachments and log files. This will become the
JIRA_HOMEdirectory. Click the Next button to continue.
Select where you would like to create shortcuts to the Start menu, and click the Next button to continue.
In the Configure TCP Ports step, we need to select the port on which JIRA will be listening for incoming connections. By default, JIRA will run on port 8080. If 8080 is already taken by another application or you want JIRA to run on a different port such as port 80, select the Set custom value for HTTP and Control ports option and specify the port numbers you want to use. Click the Next button to continue.
For the last step, select whether you would like JIRA to run as a service. If you enable this option, JIRA will be installed as a system service and can be configured to start automatically with the server.
Click the Install button to start the installation.
Once the installation is complete, check the Launch JIRA 6.3.1 in browser option and click Finish. This will close the installation wizard and open up your web browser to access JIRA. This might take a few minutes to load as JIRA starts up for the first time.
JIRA does not come bundled with the MySQL database driver, so we have to install it manually. You can download the required driver from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/j/. Once downloaded, you can install the driver by copying the driver jar file into the JIRA_INSTALL/lib directory. After that, you need to restart JIRA. If you have installed JIRA as a Windows service in step 9, please see the Starting and stopping JIRA section.
JIRA comes with an easy-to-use setup wizard that will walk you through the installation and configuration process in six simple steps. You will be able to configure the database connections, default language, and much more. You can access the wizard by opening http://localhost:<port number> in your browser, where the <port number> is the number you have assigned to JIRA in step 6 of the installation.
In the first step of the wizard, you will be asked to select Server Language and what database JIRA should connect to.
The server language will determine what language will be used when users access JIRA. You will see that as soon as you make a change from the drop-down list, JIRA will automatically change its onscreen text to the selected language.
The database connection setting will determine what database JIRA will use. If you select the Built In option, JIRA will use its bundled in-memory database, which is good for evaluation purposes. If you want to use a proper database, such as in our case, you should select the My Own Database option.
After you have selected the My Own Database option, the wizard will expand for you to provide the database connection details. If you do not have the necessary database driver installed, JIRA will prompt you for it, as shown in the preceding screenshot.
Once you have filled in the details for your database, it is a good idea to first click on the Test Connection button to verify that JIRA is able to connect to the database. If everything is set up correctly, JIRA will report back with a success message. You should be able to move onto the next step by clicking the Next button. This may take a few minutes, as JIRA will now create all the necessary database objects. Once this is done, you will be taken to step 2 of the wizard.
In the second step, you will need to provide some basic details about this JIRA instance. Once you have filled in the required properties, click on Next to move on to step 3 of the wizard.
In the third step, you need to select whether you want to install only JIRA, or if you would like to install additional add-ons. In this example, we will be installing JIRA only, so select the I'm using JIRA for project tracking option and click on Next. You can install these additional add-ons later.
In the fourth step, we need to provide a license key for JIRA. If you have already obtained a license from Atlassian, you can select I have a JIRA key option. Then cut and paste it into the License Key text box. If you do not have a license, you can generate an evaluation license by selecting either I have an account but no key option if you have an account on https://my.atlassian.com, or by selecting I don't have an account to register a new account with Atlassian. Evaluation license will grant you access to JIRA's full set of features for one month.
In the fifth step, you will be setting up the administrator account for JIRA. It is important that you keep the account details somewhere safe and do not lose the password. Since JIRA only stores the hashed value of the password instead of the actual password itself, you will not be able to retrieve it. However, there are methods for you to reset the password if you do lose it, as we will see in Chapter 10, JIRA Service Desk. Fill in the administrator account details and click on Next to move on to the last step.
Note
This account is important and it can help you troubleshoot and fix problems later on. Do not lose it!
In the sixth and final step, you can set up your e-mail server details. JIRA will use the information configured here to send out notification e-mails. Notification is a very powerful feature in JIRA and one of the primary methods for JIRA to communicate with the users. If you do not have your e-mail server information handy, you can skip this step now by selecting the Later option and clicking on Finish. You can configure your e-mail server settings later, as you will see in Chapter 7, E-mails and Notifications.
Congratulations! You have successfully completed your JIRA setup, and you will be taken directly to your new JIRA instance.
Since JIRA is installed as a Windows service, you can start, stop, and restart it via the Windows services console, by navigating to Start | Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Services. In the services console, look for Atlassian JIRA, and you will be able to stop and start the application, as shown in the following screenshot:
