Jira FreeBSD issues I should know.

[Sysadmin]

Hello to all,

I have JIRA 4.4 installed on a CentOS system and recently, we migrated our ressources and websites to new servers in a new datacenter. These new servers are using my boss's prefered OS, FreeBSD, v 9.1.

I know that I need Java 1.6.0_18 or higher is required and that 1.6.0_22 is recommended at least.

A response to an email from JIRA support confirms that it is not a supported OS and though it would probably install, JIRA will not support it so I cannot count on any help from them.

The email also states; I suggest posting to our online forums Atlassian Answers to see if any other Atlassian customers or Experts have experience with JIRA and FreeBSD.

So I am asking at large; Are there possible issues to installing JIRA on FreeBSD 9.1? Please bear in mind that we are not looking to upgrade JIRA in the short term. This means that any solutions requiring an upgrade may cause problems with financing so they will be considered only if the last possible solution.

Thank to all!

Y.Mercure

[JohnA · Accepted solution]

Hi Yvan,

The most important thing you should knw is that JIRA doesn't support OpenJDK, which is the Java platform used on FreeBSD, and OpenJDK causes many random and virtually inexplicable problems that are often VERY difficult to track down because usually they are not logged anywhere, (although if we're lucky we get messages about missing classes etc).

I have more experience with Confluence and OpenJDK than I do with JIRA, but I can tell you we have seen some seriously abstract issues in Confluence, (sometimes that aren't even reproducible using exactly the same data on the same OS, JVM, Version, Plugins etc), so in short OpenJDK can be an absolute nightmare and as such I would strongly recommend you avoid it because it could cause you a lot of stress and pain later!

However, many customers do run their instance on OpenJDK and don't have any issues, until all of a sudden something inexplicable happens and they need to contact Support...and as you can imagine, it's quite a challenge to convince them that it's OpenJDK related, (which it most often is), because it has been working fine until something changed, (such as a plugin got updated or one of a multitude of other innocuous possibilities).

So, IF you are happy to run your instance as is AND you are happy not to upgrade any of the components then you might be able to keep a solid and stable install running OpenJDK, although I'm sorry to say it is a risk and something could go wrong with it almost at random so I'd really avoid it if at all possible simply because it is an avoidable risk and it could lead to intense frustration and a lot of work to migrate the instance to a reliable platform later.

All the best,
John

[Robert Levandowski]

So, John, what you're saying is that Atlassian does not, and seems to have no plans to, support Oracle's reference implementation of Java SE 7, the codebase that defines the standard for Java 7? Especially now that Oracle is dropping support for the Sun JDK on platform after platform?

I would hate to have to defend such a position. Given Oracle's stated direction, it seems like it practically consigns Atlassian's products to obsolescence, and encourages your customers to find alternative products that value supporting standards over yet another disruptive UI refresh.