How to configure cluster of Jira Nodes

Question

Hi All,

We are currently looking for JIRA Active-Active configuration for which we have done with below steps.I need some details on proceeding further with clustering this Jira nodes.

1.) Installed JIRA on both nodes

Jira home: /localapp/atlassian/jira

Jira Local Home: /localapp/atlassian/application-data/jira

Shared Home : /home/infra/devops/atlassian/application-data/jira/shared

I have created cluster.properties on both nodes.

cluster.properties (Node1)

==================

jira.node.id = node1
# The location of the shared home directory for all JIRA nodes
jira.shared.home = /home/devops/atlassian/application-data/jira/shared

cluster.properties (Node2)

==================

jira.node.id = node2
# The location of the shared home directory for all JIRA nodes
jira.shared.home = /home/devops/atlassian/application-data/jira/shared

My question is how do I configure a common database for both these Jira instances ?

Once after login to http://node1host:8080 for node1 and configure the database, Do we still need to configure database for node2 with url http://node2host:8080  as well ?

Dave Theodore [Coyote Creek Consulting] · Answer

From your configuration and description, it doesn't look like you have a shared storage volume for Jira's home directory. In @Andy Heinzer's link, look at the picture under the "Installing Jira Data Center" section.  See how they show a shared database and shared storage? You need to set your environment up this way per the instructions.  When you do this, the first node will set up the shared home directory, complete with database config file. When you start up the additional nodes, they will see the existing configuration files and join the cluster.

Andy Heinzer · Answer

It sounds like you might have skipped a few steps here for setting up Jira Data center.  I would recommend reviewing the guide in Installing JIRA Data Center.

Even for a new installation of data center, you are not expected to setup both nodes simultaneously.  Instead there is an expectation that you would set the first node up and get it working with Jira first before setting the cluster.properties file.  It's this initial setup on the first node that will force you to connect that node to the Jira database and in turn that first start up of Jira connected to that node will create all the database tables needed.

Once that is done, you can then continue with the other steps to set the cluster.properties file, and setup the shared home directory on the first node.  You do need to do that first. Once you do that, you can then add additional nodes, which typically are just using the same settings in the local $JIRAHOME/dbconfig.xml in order to connect to a SQL server that has to be reachable from all the nodes in question.

So you don't have to create a second database here, instead section 5 of that guide explains how you add additional nodes to the cluster:

5. Add a new JIRA node to the cluster

* Copy the JIRA installation directory to a new host. Atlassian recommends that your configuration deviates from the first installation as little as possible to ease the burden of documentation and deployment (e.g. Installation paths, users, file permissions, etc).
* Ensure that the new host can access the shared home directory (e.g. ensure that you can read the contents of the shared JIRA directory and have write access to it)
* Copy the local home directory from the first node to this new node.
* Alter the cluster.properties file to reference the new node id. All node ids must be unique among nodes.
* Start the new node and monitor for startup problems.
* Ensure that issue creation, search, attachments, and customizations work as expected.

I hope this helps.

Andy