Where to customize server.xml after upgrade from 8.7 to 8.20.8

[Michael Kotschi]

Hello,

I have upgraded our Jira Server Software (running on Ubuntu 18.04) from 8.7 to 8.20.8 and everything seems to be working fine, but in order to configure our plugins I had to update:

/opt/atlassian/jira/conf/server.xml

But I was under the impression that modifications should be made in:

/var/atlassian/application-data/jira/customisations/conf/server.xml

In fact if I shutdown the Jira process and copy server.xml into /var/atlassian/application-data/jira/customisations/conf/ upon starting the Jira process it wipes out the "conf" directory and the server.xml file that was in it, and it runs with the copy in /opt/atlassian/jira/conf/

Is this expected behavior in 8.20.8 ?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

You are exactly right - the upgrade simply scrubs all the existing files, so you lose all your customisations.

Atlassian could be a bit more clever in their upgrade code - if a properties or xml file is in a standard format and the changes you've made to it not too extensive, then it would be nice if they coded to at least attempt to preserve our changes.  (As an example, I always run Jira behind a SSL proxy, and on a subdomain - since at least Jira 5, my home's Jira server.xml has needed the same five changes made to the off-the-shelf file on every upgrade.  The proxy name, port, secure = true, scheme https and context of <my site>/jira, have never changed).  It's not hard to write code that could throw the server.xml through that.

Anyway, ignoring my annoyances, we need to look at your installation.

Jira's upgrade will have scrubbed your changes, but it sounds like you have a backup to refer to?  You will need to merge your customisations back into the Jira upgrade version of the file(s), but this should be a short copy & paste exercise.

I am not 100% sure where your Jira is installed or running from your post, but if I assume you installed Jira with the settings:

• Installation: /opt/atlassian/jira/
• Data (home): /var/atlassian/application-data/jira

then the file you need to look at is /opt/atlassian/jira/conf/server.xml

[Michael Kotschi]

Thanks Nic, you are correct our setup is:

• Installation: /opt/atlassian/jira/
• Data (home): /var/atlassian/application-data/jira

And the file I modified was  /opt/atlassian/jira/conf/server.xml

I was just unsure if I was missing something.

Again thank you for your help.