Jira/Conflunce Upgarde
Asked by Nitin Benjamin:

Dear All, Our project is using Jira and Confluence for the past many years. My manager have asked to upgrade Jira to the latest one. Since I am new to this, please let me out how to upgrade latest Jira and Confluence version in my Unix server. I have gone through many article and I am confused.

Jira Current Version :6.3.9

Conflucen Current verison : 5.6.4


Answers:
author: DPKJ
body: First you need to identify how installation was done on your system.

1. As Service, or
2. Manual (using tar.gz package)

For service instance upgrading is quite easy, you just need to update services, this link enough <https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiraserver/upgrading-jira-server-installer-938846937.html>

For Manual Installations,

* You will need to replace installer with new installer, and
* update value of home path, and
* change settings inside \<installation\>/conf/server.xml, and \<installation\>/bin/setenv.sh files (to match old installation)
* you can shutdown old instance and start new one.

Point to ponder,

* Direct update from Jira 6 to 8 is not possible you need to do it in steps, 6.3.x to 6.4.xx to 7.0.xx to 7.3 to 8.3
* If you are using MySQL or Oracle as database you need to manually out JDBC Connector files in \<installation\>/lib directory
* Make sure all your plugins are supported on new version of Jira and Confluence before upgrade
* New Jira and Confluence require more system memory by default

comments: author: Nitin Benjamin
body: Thank DPK for your answer. Totally appreciated. This Jira/Conf. was installed long back when I was not there. Is there any quick turnaround to know how it was installed in my server ? Since I see many ways to install i.e installer, manual and data center.


author: DPKJ
body: [@Nitin Benjamin](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3530820)

Verification of Data Center and Non DC is really easy,

* if you jira/confluence home folder contain cluster.properties file it is DC installation otherwise it is sever installation
* You can also verify same by look at your license.

For manual vs service installation

* Check if Jira/Confluence exists as service in /etc/init.d/
* And check usual places for home and installation
  * like installer keep home folder in /var/atlassian/application-data/

Manual vs Service verification is not straight forward tough.


author: Deepanshu Natani
body: Hi [@Nitin Benjamin](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3530820) I hope the above answer would have resolved your query. :-)


author: Nitin Benjamin
body: Thanks a lot guys. I came up with conclusions that I will need to upgrade with manual technique. I will now need to create a staging environment which would replicate the production environment. Could you please help me on this with technical aspects. Below is the link which I found.

<https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/create-a-staging-environment-for-upgrading-confluence-866094180.html>


author: DPKJ
body: This is guide is complete in itself. Mostly,

* You need to create DB replica,
* Home Directory replica,
* Change settings proxy and conf/sever.xml
* and disable notifications.

Here is similar question - <https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/Can-a-test-environment-be-created-by-cloning-VM/qaq-p/1156578>


author: Nitin Benjamin
body: Thanks again, it helped me a lot. One question again, In which directory or file will I find console link to access Confluence ?


author: Deepanshu Natani
body: Hi Nitin, upgrading Jira is very easy. Please go through the below mentioned link for detailed steps:

<https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiraserver/upgrading-jira-applications-938846936.html>

<https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiraserver/upgrading-jira-server-installer-938846937.html>

Please note that you need to have access to directories where Jira is installed and you must also have admin access to Jira.

A similar process can be done for Confluence.

If you still have any doubts, please elaborate where are you facing the issue.

comments: author: Nitin Benjamin
body: Thanks Deeoanshu. I have all permissions which is required and have admin access too. But I am not sure which way should I go for the upgrade. I see three ways of upgrading confluence such as Installer, manual or data center or maybe more.


Tags: jira