Upgrading JIRA from 6.x to 7.x

[#1]

We had a fun (not really) time upgrading from JIRA 6.4 to 7.3 at our company. So we wanted to share our notes for everyone else in case you are working on the same task.

Big thanks to Sebastien Jacques for documenting all of this for us over the course of a weekend and to Daniel Eads for sending us his notes on the same.

Couple of notes:

1. We are using Linux (RHEL 6), I might've missed making a few commands generic instead of the Linux ones.
2. We have JSD installed in the same instance, not a separate server/instance.
3. This took an ENTIRE weekend to run, Friday night to Sunday night.
4. DO NOT SKIP ANY STEPS
5. Please make sure you run this in a Staging/Test environment first

Preparation

1. Stop JIRA
2. Backup the database
3. rsync/copy <JIRA_INSTALL> and <JIRA_HOME> to a backup directory (e.g. upgrade-2017)

This is the initial rollback checkpoint.

Upgrade instance to JIRA 7.0.11 and JSD 3.0.11

1. Start JIRA
2. Upgrade your plugins to the latest supported version
3. Restart JIRA and perform a reindex
4. In the add-ons administration UI, Enter Safe Mode
5. Shutdown JIRA
6. Run the JIRA 7.0.11 installer and select upgrade (do not start JIRA at the end)
7. chown/update permissions on the <JIRA_INSTALL> directory (check that the <JIRA_HOME> directory still belongs to jira, or the appropriate user account running JIRA)
8. Remove the License Storage Plugin (see 'Atlassian Universal Plugin Manager - Plugin License Storage plugin' failed to load.)
9. Update <JIRA_HOME>dbconfig.xml with the recommended settings (see Health Check: Database Connection Settings)
   1. Or wherever your dbconfig.xml file is located
10. Update any changed/added files.
    
    1. IE your oracle DB driver or any specific settings.
11. Start JIRA
12. Exit safe mode, don't keep changes
13. Update and enable plugins one by one
14. Uninstall JSD 2.5.9 (Keep config)
15. Restart JIRA
16. Re-index
17. Install JSD 3.0.11 by uploading the obr to the Application page.
    1. You can download the obr on Atlassians website by going to download JSD,  select "All server Versions", and then select "Already have JIRA Software or Core?"
18. Verify everything is working at this point. If things don't look correct you might need to restore your backups and try again. 

Backup

1. Stop JIRA
2. Backup the database
3. rsync/copy <JIRA_INSTALL> and <JIRA_HOME> to a backup directory (e.g. upgrade-2017_2)

This is the JIRA 7.0 rollback checkpoint.

Upgrade instance to JIRA 7.3.3 and JSD 3.4.0

1. Start JIRA
2. Uninstall JSD 3.0.11 (Keep config)
3. In the add-ons administration UI, Enter Safe Mode
4. Shutdown JIRA
5. Run the JIRA 7.3.3 installer and select upgrade (do not start JIRA at the end)
6. chown/update permissions on the <JIRA_INSTALL> directory (check that the <JIRA_HOME> directory still belongs to jira, or the appropriate user account running JIRA)
7. Update any changed/added files.
   
   1. IE your oracle DB driver or any specific settings.
8. Start JIRA
9. Exit safe mode, don't keep changes
10. Update and enable plugins one by one
11. Restart JIRA
12. Re-index
13. Install JSD <latest supported> by uploading the obr to the Application page.
    1. You can download the obr on Atlassians website by going to download JSD,  select "All server Versions", and then select "Already have JIRA Software or Core?"

[Brian Jones]

Word of warning... Please make sure you run this in a Staging/Test environment first. Wish i would've added this in the Notes section at the top of the article.

[Monique vdB]

@Brian, you should be able to edit this to add the info -- the three dots at the bottom of the post.  Also, would you be willing to add an image of some type? Makes it possible to feature :)

[Brian Jones]

Thanks @Monique! not sure how i missed that.

[Monique vdB]

No problem -- on discussions and questions the edit dots are at the top of the post -- a minor UX inconsistency that we will eventually fix but for now... that's probably why you missed it :)

[Ross Lindell _Information Officer Pte Ltd_]

I am seeing a problem where Jira fails to start (Jira Locked) due to Addons not starting.  I think the step of putting Jira into Safe Mode causes this.  In my case - the DB for Addons needs to be set to 'enable' per:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirakb/jira-application-does-not-start-due-to-disabled-bundled-plugin-254738702.html

If I skip the put into Safe Mode step, the upgrade script seems run OK, and Jira will start post upgrade.  YMMV, just hope that helps as the fix is a bit tedious.

[Luca Andreatta]

Another nice thing to do before upgrading is to run the Integrity Checker and fix any error that it finds

[Yuriy Lozhkin]

Hi, all. I have already reached to 11 item, after the start of jira, in catalina.out the following error:

localhost-startStop-1 ERROR [o.a.c.c.C. [Catalina]. [localhost]. [/]] Error configuring application listener of class com.atlassian.jira.soap.axis.JiraAxisHttpListener.

 I read on the forum that you need to check the version 2 plug-ins in <JIRA_Installation_Home> / atlassian-jira / WEB-INF / lib directory. If there, move them to <jira-home> / installed-plugins.
I can not understand how to determine the version of the plugin in the console. Or where can be an error?

[Ioannis D]

Great post, thank you @Brian Jones!

Two things to add:

• Check your DB compatibility with JIRA 7.x
  e.g. for MySQL you would need v5.6 newer
• You might need to update any scripts that you have in your installation
  e.g. due to API changes, etc.

[Brian Jones]

@Yuriy Lozhkin

I hope you managed to fix your error, apologies for not seeing this earlier. If not, do you have anymore more context from that log file? I see a few fixes that could apply to the error you are seeing, but need to see the entire error rather than just that one line.

@Ioannis D

Thanks! Always good to check the Supported Platforms before an upgrade to make sure your current infrastructure is supported.