Jira DC Helm Chart - Custom server.xml - ConfigMap vs customServerXml variable

[Bryan Guffey]

Hi all-

I'm making some modifications to our jira K8s deployment in order to support Application Tunnels as we're moving to Confluence Cloud, and I was researching the best way to add an additional connector to server.xml as documented here: Application Tunnels: Configure required connections and upstream port

I had been reviewing the open issues on the DC Helm chart GitHub repo and came across this question from someone looking to add JNDI resources to server.xml. In the response, user "@bianchi2" who seems to work for Atlassian suggested the following: 

hi zeddit server.xml isgenerated from a templateeach time the container starts, and indeed, it does not support additional resources in the context. What you can do though is to:

• copy existing server.xml from the running pod
• add a new jndi location
• create a configmap from this filekubectl create configmap custom-server-xml --from-file=server.xml -n <namespace>
• use additionalFiles functionality in values, yaml for example:

additionalFiles:
- name: custom-server-xml
  type: configMap
  key: server.xml
  mountPath:  /opt/atlassian/jira/conf

Once done, run helm upgrade, and you should have server.xml mounted into conf.

However, in values.yaml for the Jira chart, there is also a variable called customServerXml which looks like this: 

       # -- Custom server.xml to be mounted into /opt/atlassian/jira/conf
       #
       customServerXml: |
#         <?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
#         <Server port="8005" shutdown="SHUTDOWN">
#         </Server>

 Can someone share with me what are the differences between these two options, and why someone might choose one over the other? 

Thanks in advance!!!

[Yevhen]

hi @Bryan Guffey there's no difference, well, almost no difference. While additionalFiles imply that you create a configmap outside helm chart, customServerXml belongs to the helm chart and configmap will be created for you (and you keep your server.xml in helm values). You can also use additionalConfigMaps which will also create a cm for you and mount it as a file to whatever location you need.