How to clone a Jira instance to another server

[Maxime Lemanissier]

Hello,

I'm running a hosted Jira 4.4.3 with a local MySQL DB.

I would like to duplicate this production instance to another server, in order to test there the upgrade to the latest Jira and experiment its new features.

How can I clone this whole jira instance? (db data, attachments, etc.)

Would a full copy of jira installation and data folders + mysql export / import would do the job?

[Walt Fles · Accepted solution]

The copy and export/import would do it, but also there are some configuration files which contain the name of the server.

Also if you have any services and/or email boxes in production then you'll have to remove them otherwise you'll have the wrong jira instance responding to email.

[Maxime Lemanissier]

Ok, thanks for the info.

Do you know which files contain host-related settings? (i can think of the jira base url)

Indeed, I have a Jira Extended Mail Handler running. I think I can alter its conf file on the cloned environment, before starting it.

[petry]

I would suggest you to export your production database and import it into your DEV database, instead of using the XML process. That's because the XML import process can fix some inconsistencies, and the database export/import will avoid that, making this copy more reliable.

Regards,

Andre

[Marcus Silveira]

Hi Maxime,

I advise you to follow these steps

• Create a XML backup on your current JIRA instance;
• Create the new database according to this documentation;
• Set your new environment to the new database;
• Copy the necessary files according to this. You only need to copy the modified files and the other files if you use a different User Directory.
• Start your new JIRA instance;
• Restore the instance using the XML backup;
• Copy the contents from $JIRA_HOME/data to your new $JIRA_HOME/data.

More information can be found on this documentation.

Hope this helps,

Marcus Silveira

[Maxime Lemanissier]

thanks for the info.

I also though about using export / import features from Jira administration, but the problem with this method is that the jira installation has to be redone on the clone environment.

As it's for testing an upgrade, an important prerequesite is that the test environment is an exact copy of the production one.