Unable to check for local modifications when upgrading JIRA

[Adam Yerkman]

I've recently moved JIRA to a different server and during my first attempt to upgrade JIRA, it is unable to check for modifications to local files. I'm upgrading JIRA from 5.1.4 to 5.2.5. I'm assuming this has to be some sort of permissions issue on the server, but can't figure out where. The server is Linux and I'm running the bin installer to upgrade JIRA. Below is the portion of output from the installer that tells me it is unable to check for local modifications. Does anyone know how to get it so the installer is able to check for local modifications?

If you have many attachments in your JIRA Home Directory, the zip archive of

this directory may consume a significant amount of disk space.

Back up JIRA home directory?

Yes [y], No [n, Enter]

n

Checking for local modifications.

Unable to check for modifications.

Checking if your instance of JIRA is running

Upgrade Check List

Back up your external database

We strongly recommend you back up your JIRA database if you have not already

done so.

[Renjith Pillai · Accepted solution]

• Permissions may be the probable cause. Which user was used to run JIRA/install JIRA before?
• How is the installation directory and the home directory setup for the existing installation? Have seen some issues if one happens to be a sub-directory of another.

[Adam Yerkman]

The user I'm using to install JIRA now is the same user I used for the initial installation of JIRA on this server. It is also the user I use to run JIRA. The users name is jira. I don't have root privileges on the server, but I can request them if I need them.

The installation directory is /opt/jirainstall and the home directory is /opt/jirahome. The jira user owns both of the directories and all the files and subdirectories contained within these two.

[Adam Yerkman]

Permissions were the issue as suspected. The user I was running the installer as didn't have permissions to write to /opt. When the installer runs, it writes a file to the parent directory of the JIRA installation directory. If that file can't be written, and most likely read, it will give the message that it can't check for local modifications. My solution to this, since I wasn't given permissions to write to /opt was to nest the installation one directory further down.

Your question about directories and sub-directories made me think of this. Thanks Renjith.