Installing JIRA on Solaris

Installing Atlassian JIRA on Solaris is pretty easy. To run JIRA on a production environment you'll need:

• Java SE (JRE or JDK).
• A supported database.
• Optionally, an application server.

Solaris 10 is bundled with everything you need while, on OpenSolaris, you'll rely packaging system to install the bits you're missing.

Installing Java SE

Solaris 10 is bundled with Java SE 5.0 at /usr/jdk but you might switch to 6.0 as well. If you want to install a private Java SE 6.0 instance on your Solaris 10 system, just download the shell executable versions from Sun website and install them:

$ chmod +x jdk-6u20-solaris-i586.sh

$ cd /java/installation/dir

$ ./jdk-6u20-solaris-i586.sh

If you're running an AMD64 system you should also install the x64 bits:

$ cd /java/installation/dir

$ chmod +x jdk-6u20-solaris-x64.sh

$ ./jdk-6u20-solaris-x64.sh

I usually install private Java SE instance on /opt/jdk replicating the structure of the /usr/jdk which is very helpful, for example, when decoupling specific Java SE instances from shell scripts:

# cd /opt

# mkdir -p jdk/instances

[...install here...]

# 

# cd /opt/jdk

# ln -s instances/jdk1.6.0_20 jdk1.6.0_20

# ln -s jdk1.6.0_20 latest

Setting Up JAVA_HOME

When using JIRA scripts your JAVA_HOME environment variable should be set accordingly. I usually write a small script to prepare the environment for me:

[set-jira-env]

export JAVA_HOME=/opt/jdk/latest

export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH

and then just source it into my current shell:

$ . ~/bin/set-jira-env

Setting Up an User

This is a point to seriously take into account when running your JIRA instances. Since I usually build a Solaris Zone to run JIRA into, I sometimes run JIRA as the root user. By the way, if you need to create an user, just run:

# useradd -d /export/home/jira -g staff -m -k /etc/skel -s /bin/bash jira

Please note that Solaris 10 use the /export/home directory as the root of local user home directories. You cal also use Solaris' automount to map user homes in /export/home in /home. Ensure that the /etc/auto_master file contains the following line:

/home  auto_home  -nobrowse

Then edit the /etc/auto_home file as in the following example:

*  -fstype=lofs  :/export/home/&

Ensure that the autofs service is running:

$ svcs \*autofs\*

STATE          STIME    FMRI

online         Feb_16   svc:/system/filesystem/autofs:default

If it's not, enable it:

# svcadm enable svc:/system/filesystem/autofs:default

After creating an user, you can just change its home directory and the automounter will mount its home into /home:

# usermod -d /home/jira jira

Setting Up a Project

Solaris has excellent resource management facilities such as Solaris Project. If you want to finely tune the resources you're assigning to your JIRA instance or to the Solaris Zone where your instance will be run you can read this blog post.

Setting Up PostgreSQL

Solaris 10 comes with a supported instance of the PostgreSQL database which is, moreover, one of Atlassian's very favorite databases. Solaris, then, provides out-of-the-box all of the pieces you need to run your JIRA instances.

To check if it's enabled just run:

# svcs "*postgresql*"

STATE          STIME    FMRI

disabled       abr_23   svc:/application/database/postgresql_83:default_32bit

disabled       abr_23   svc:/application/database/postgresql:version_82

disabled       abr_23   svc:/application/database/postgresql:version_82_64bit

disabled       abr_23   svc:/application/database/postgresql:version_81

online         abr_29   svc:/application/database/postgresql_83:default_64bit

In this case, the PostgreSQL 8.3 64-bits instance is active. If it were not, just enable it using the following command:

# svcadm enable svc:/application/database/postgresql_83:default_64bit

This is just the beginning, though. To make the initial configuration for your PostgreSQL instance on Solaris, please read this other post.

Installing JIRA

Please take into account that to install the standalone JIRA distribution you'll need GNU tar. GNU tar isn't always bundled in a Solaris 10 instance, while it is in OpenSolaris/Nevada. If it is, it should be installed in /usr/sfw/bin/gtar. If your Solaris 10 instance have no GNU tar and you would like to install it, you can grab it for example from the Solaris Companion CD.

Since I don't like having to rely on GNU tar, I usually decompress the GNU tar file on regenerate a pax file to store for later use. To create a pax file including the contents of the current directory you can run the following command:

$ pax -w -f your-pax-file.pax .

To read and extract the content of a pax file you can run:

$ pax -r -f your-pax-file

You can install JIRA on a directory of your choice. I usually install it in the /opt/atlassian subdirectory.

Create a JIRA Home Directory

JIRA will store its file on a directory you should provide. Let's say the you'll prepare the /var/atlassian/jira directory as the home directory for JIRA:

# mkdir -p /var/atlassian/jira

If you can, consider creating a ZFS file system instead of a plain old directory: ZFS provides you powerful tools in case you want, for example, to compress at runtime, to take a snapshot of, to backup or retore your file system:

# zfs create your-pool/jira-home

# zfs set mountpoint=[mount-point] your-pool/jira-home

Setting Your JIRA Home Directory

The jira-application.properties file is JIRA main configuration file. There, you'll find the jira.home properties which must point to the JIRA dome directory you just prepared:

[jira-application.properties]

[...snip...]

jira.home = /var/atlassian/jira

[...snip...]

Creating a Database Schema and an User for JIRA

The last thing you've got to do is creating a database user and a schema for JIRA to store its data. On Solaris, you can just use psql. The default postgres user comes with no password on a vanilla Solaris 10 installation. Please, consider to change it as soon as you start using your PostgreSQL database.

# psql -U postgres

postgres=# create user jira-user password 'jira-password';

postgres=# create database jira-db ENCODING 'UTF-8' OWNER jira-user;

postgres=# grant all on database jira-db to jira-user;

If you don't remember, you can exit psql with the \q command. ;)

Configuring Your Database in JIRA

To tell JIRA that it must use your newly created PostgreSQL database your have to open the conf/server.xml file and change the following parameters:

[server.xml]

<Context path="" docBase="${catalina.home}/atlassian-jira" reloadable="false">

<Resource name="jdbc/JiraDS" auth="Container" type="javax.sql.DataSource"

username="[enter db username]"

password="[enter db password]"

driverClassName="org.postgresql.Driver"

url="jdbc:postgresql://host:port/database"

[ delete the minEvictableIdleTimeMillis and timeBetweenEvictionRunsMillis params here ]

/>

The last thing to do is configuring the entity engine modifying the atlassian-jira/WEB-INF/classes/entityengine.xml file:

[entityengine.xml]

<datasource name="defaultDS" field-type-name="postgres72"

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"

check-indices-on-start="true">

Start JIRA

You can now happily start JIRA by issuing:

# ./bin/startup.sh

from the JIRA installation directory.

Next Steps

The next step will tipically be configuring JIRA as a Solaris SMF Service.

Enjoy JIRA!