What is the best (and cost free) way to learn JIRA administration?

[dillip kumar]

Hi, im a student...can i get a free JIRA access for my learning purpose 

[Joe Pitt]

You can download a 10 user version from Atlassian for a small fee. The first thing you need to change is the default permission scheme. 

JIRA works by GRANTING access. You can't restrict access. By default, it grants access to the group used to logon (used to be JIRA-users but may be different on your version).  This is probably where they’re getting the access from.

1. The FIRST thing you need to do to get control is to remove any groups with logon privileges from the permission scheme unless you absolutely want everyone to have that permission.
2. Then I suggest you setup Project Roles for the various functions like, tester, QA, Browse Only, etc.
3. One permission scheme will cover almost all projects. The project admin controls project role membership

This may be a big effort, but it will pay off down the road by making it easy to control access.

Most of the 'old timers' use project roles. It meets the best practice for security and gives complete control to the project lead for access to their project. JIRA comes with many project roles, but you can add more if you have a special need.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

>Most of the 'old timers' use project roles.

Heh.  Every training course about Jira that's any good and deals with access has the tutor jumping around yelling "use roles".  Everywhere.  Seriously, get to know roles, and use them.