How to Install JIRA on Ubuntu Linux

Developed by Atlassian, JIRA is a proprietary and comprehensive software tool mainly used for project management, issue tracking, and bug fixing. JIRA comes with an intuitive dashboard that helps you track issues.

These issues could be software defects or bugs, new features or requirements to mention just a few. It also ships with workflows that enable you to track work progress and pinpoint where a problem is.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to install JIRA on Ubuntu Linux.

Jira linux Installation Prerequisites

Before we get started with  the installation, ensure you have the following:

1. An instance of Ubuntu 18.04 / Debian 10
2. Have MySQL database installed on your instance. JIRA requires a database to install all the files so MySQL will come in handy.

Let's now dive in and get along with the installation.

Step 1: Create a database for JIRA

JIRA software requires a database for its installation, therefore the first step will be to create a database in the MySQL database engine.

Login to MySQL as a root user

# mysql -u root -p

Create a database for JIRA

CREATE DATABASE jira_db;

Next, create a user for JIRA

CREATE USER 'jira_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'Your_Password';

Grant all privileges to the JIRA user in order to access the JIRA  database.

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON jira_db.* TO 'jira_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED by 'Your_Password';

To wrap it up flush the privileges

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Step 2: Download JIRA &  assign necessary permissions

Having created the database for JIRA, our next step will be to download JIRA's binary file.  Download the file using the wget command as shown.

# wget https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/downloads/binary/atlassian-jira-software-7.8.2-x64.bin

Next, assign execute permissions to the binary file

# chmod a+x atlassian-jira-software-7.8.2-x64.bin

WIth execute permissions assigned, run the binary file:

./ atlassian-jira-software-7.8.2-x64.bin

When running the binary file you will be prompted to answer a couple of questions as highlighted below.

Ensure you make the selections as highlighted below.

If the installation goes well as expected, you will get the output highlighted in. You can proceed and access JIRA on the web interface via port 8080. But first, let's open some ports on the UFW firewall to give access to external users to access JIRA.

Step 3: Open JIRA ports

To successfully access and configure JIRA on the web console, we need to open a few ports on the UFW firewall that will enable us to access JIRA.

If UFW is not installed on your system, run the command

# apt install ufw

Now, you can proceed and open ports 8080, 8181 and 8005

# ufw allow 8181

# ufw allow 8005

# ufw allow 8080

Then enable the firewall for the  rules to come into effect

# ufw enable

To confirm that the rules exist. run the command:

# ufw status

Step 4: Accessing JIRA

All is now set to access JIRA and proceed with the web setup. Fire up  your browser and browse your server's IP as shown:

http://server-IP:8080

The first page presents two options as shown. Click on 'I'll set it up myself' and click on the 'Next' button.

On the next Window, click on 'My own database'  and for the Database type value, click and select 'MySQL'.  You will get a notification that JIRA requires you to download a MySQL driver and thereafter restart JIRA after installing it.

To download the MySQL driver, use the wget command to download it from MySQL's official site.

wget https://dev.mysql.com/get/archives/mysql-connector-java-5.1/mysql-connector-java-5.1.36.zip

Once downloaded, unzip the zipped file

# unzip mysql-connector-java-5.1.36.zip

Next, navigate into the  mysql-connector-java directory and copy the jar file to the path /opt/atlassian/jira/lib

# cp mysql-connector-java-5.1.36-bin.jar  /opt/atlassian/jira/lib

Next, restart JIRA using the commands:

#  /etc/init.d/jira stop

# /etc/init.d/jira start

Now head back to your browser and fill out all the details and click on 'Test connection' button at the bottom.

The notification below is a confirmation that the test was successful.

Click  Next and fill out the 'Application title', 'Mode' and click the  'Next' button.

Next, you will be required to enter the license key of JIRA. Click on the link as shown which will redirect you to Atlassian site from where you will be able to generate the license key.

Follow the instructions to generate the key and paste the key in the text field and click 'Next'.

In the next Window, set up the Administrators account as shown and click 'Next'.

Choose whether to set up email notification or not and click the 'Finish' button.

Finally, the wizard will prompt you to select your language. Do so and click Next.

And voila!  there goes the JIRA dashboard!

Conclusion

JIRA can be a great source of information, or to know the status of the running project. As the whole team working on it, and would agree on the points mention in it. It keeps on giving reminders or updating with the running state of the project. So if you are new to JIRA and are working in Software Development or Testing and not aware of how to install and use JIRA effectively, then we hope have at the end of this tutorial you are now able to install JIRA without any problem. If you still find any problem then feel free to contact us right here.