How do I host JIRA on a public server

[Christopher Littlewood]

Hello everyone.

I would first like to apologise if the question is a bit dodgy. I am a university student trying to use JIRA for an assignment. I would like to put it on a server I am running at home so that everyone in my group can access it when they need to and complete or start new tasks whenever. I have noticed that just installing the server only installs it locally.

I have been following this tutorial:

Proxying Atlassian server applications with Apache HTTP Server (mod_proxy_http)

I am not sure that is what I am looking for. I still want it so that only I can add users but I want us to be able to access it from our homes or wherever.

Thanks in advance
Chris

[RianS · Accepted solution]

By default a JIRA Server instance can be accessible from off the machine. It's possible that you have a firewall and/or router in the way that can prevent the JIRA instance from being accessed outside your internal network or even from outside the machine.

Generally, you can setup your router to forward the requests to the JIRA Server installation and open up the server's firewall, and then access it using your external IP address. This does open up your internal network somewhat and can put it at risk if the server you are running JIRA isn't secure/patched regularly.

[Christopher Littlewood]

When I install JIRA, it always installs it on the network "localhost". Do I just do the manual setup and change localhost to my public IP?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Not quite. 

You need to set up your network as Rian says, so that other machines can reach it. 

Then change the base url from "localhost" to "url you are running it on externally" (it's under admin -> general configuration)

[Christopher Littlewood]

So what I did was install JIRA Software using the recommended installation. (I didnt change the install location, ports etc) After I installed it, I did the quick setup. After finishing, I set up port forwarding for port 8080 (TCP/UDP). I have also setup a dynamic DNS at dtdns.com. The url I created is

crytech.dtdns.net:8080

I put this into the base URL in JIRA I still cant access it. Am I missing a step?

[RianS]

What operating system are you running the JIRA software on? It's possible that the machine has a firewall which is blocking incoming requests to the JIRA software running on the 8080 port.

I would also test by opening a web browser on another machine on your internal network to that machines IP at port 8080 and see whether it loads. For example http://192.168.1.2:8080/ and see whether it loads there. If it loads, you know that your router configuration and dynamic DNS is probably the issue. If not, then you can focus on the JIRA server, check the firewall settings or the actual running JIRA configuration.

[Christopher Littlewood]

I am running on windows 10. The firewall is setup on automatic. Should I change it to manual and add extra rules?

[Christopher Littlewood]

All working now. It was my firewall. Thanks

[Navrattan Jain]

Hi, @Christopher Littlewood please can you explain how to setup dynamic dns for jira server? would really appreciate that.