Installing JIRA on Oracle OC4J 10.1.3x

Download and unzip the JIRA WAR (Webapp ARchive) distribution. A new directory containing JIRA will be created, hereafter referred to as $JIRA_HOME

2.1. Copy JDBC driver jar to OC4J

Download the JDBC driver .jar file for your database (see the list here), and copy it to OC4J's j2ee/home/applib/ directory. For instance with PostgreSQL, one might have j2ee/home/applib/pg73jdbc3.jar.

2.2 OC4J Database configuration

Edit $OC4J/j2ee/home/config/data-sources.xml and define a 'managed-data-source' and a 'connection-pool' for the database you wish JIRA to use. For example, using PostgreSQL:

<managed-data-source name="JiraDS" jndi-name="jdbc/JiraDS" connection-pool-name="JiraPool"/>

<connection-pool name="JiraPool">
    <connection-factory factory-class="org.postgresql.Driver"
    user="jirauser"
    password="jirapassword"
    url="jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/jiradb"/>
 </connection-pool>
      

Database details (in bold) will vary depending on database - see this page for other database details.

2.3. JIRA entityengine.xml configuration

Having installed a JDBC driver and configured a datasource, you now need to tell JIRA where to find the datasource and transaction manager, as well as what type of database you're using.

Open the edit-webapp/WEB-INF/classes/entityengine.xml file. There are two sections that must be changed.

First, near the top, locate:

  <transaction-factory class="org.ofbiz.core.entity.transaction.JNDIFactory">
        <user-transaction-jndi jndi-server-name="default" jndi-name="java:comp/env/UserTransaction"/>
        <transaction-manager-jndi jndi-server-name="default" jndi-name="java:comp/env/UserTransaction"/>
  </transaction-factory>

and remove the /env, so it reads:

  <transaction-factory class="org.ofbiz.core.entity.transaction.JNDIFactory">
        <user-transaction-jndi jndi-server-name="default" jndi-name="java:comp/UserTransaction"/>
        <transaction-manager-jndi jndi-server-name="default" jndi-name="java:comp/UserTransaction"/>
  </transaction-factory>

Second, at the bottom, customize the datasource section, specifying the right database type and jndi-name (highlighted in bold here):

<datasource name="defaultDS" field-type-name="postgres72"
      schema-name="public"
      helper-class="org.ofbiz.core.entity.GenericHelperDAO"
      check-on-start="true"
      use-foreign-keys="false"
      use-foreign-key-indices="false"
      check-fks-on-start="false"
      check-fk-indices-on-start="false"
      add-missing-on-start="true"
      check-indices-on-start="true">
        <jndi-jdbc jndi-server-name="default" jndi-name="jdbc/JiraDS"/>
</datasource>
		

(In this example we're using PostgreSQL, and have added a schema-name="public" attribute as PostgreSQL requires.)

The jndi-name attribute in entityengine.xml must match the ejb-location attribute in your config/data-sources.xml file. Note the lack of java:comp/env in the jndi-name attribute.

Now build JIRA by typing build (Windows) or ./build.sh (Unix) on the command line, in $JIRA_HOME. This will produce the deployable WAR file in the $JIRA_HOME/dist-generic directory. You can copy this elsewhere if you prefer.

Edit j2ee/home/config/application.xml to add the JIRA webapp to the default application like so:

<web-module id="jira" path="$JIRA_HOME/dist-generic/atlassian-jira-3.3.war"/>

(where $JIRA_HOME is the path to your JIRA distribution)

Now bind this "jira" webapp to a website. For example, to add JIRA to the default website edit config/default-web-site.xml and add the following line:

<web-app application="default" name="jira" root="/jira"/>

Where:

• application="default" references the "default" application (application named "default" in application.xml)
• name="jira" references the id="jira" web-module defined in application.xml
• root="/jira" is the path off the website JIRA will be visible at, eg. http://localhost:8888/jira/.

First, edit the startup script, and set the OC4J_JVM_ARGS property. On Windows, edit bin\oc4j.cmd and add the following line in bold:

set OC4J_JVM_ARGS=-Djavax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory=com.icl.saxon.TransformerFactoryImpl

set J2EE_HOME=%ORACLE_HOME%\j2ee\home
....

On Unix, edit bin/oc4j and add the following line in bold:

OC4J_JVM_ARGS=-Djavax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory=com.icl.saxon.TransformerFactoryImpl

J2EE_HOME=$ORACLE_HOME/j2ee/home
....

Now download saxon-noealfred-6.5.5.jar, the library the above parameter refers to, and copy it to j2ee/home/applib/.

Then start OC4J by going to the j2ee/home directory and running java -jar oc4j.jar. Watch the log/* files for any errors.

JIRA should become accessible at http://localhost:8888/jira/

Here's a list of things to check:

1. Are there any errors on the console or j2ee/home/log/oc4j/log.xml and j2ee/home/log/* files? Usually if JIRA isn't starting, messages in the logs can get you on the right track.

2. Have you got a .jar file for saxon and for your database in applib/?

3. Is the JIRA webapp being deployed? Check in the j2ee/home/application-deployments/ directory - there should be a default/jira/ subdirectory if the webapp was deployed. If there isn't, check your server.xml and default-web-site files.

4. If OC4J seems to be using an old version of JIRA, delete the application-deployments/default/jira directory and restart. It is a good idea to do this anyway if you are unsure of the state of things.

If the problems persist, please file a support request, attaching your logs and config files, and we'll take a look.

Have experiences to share with OC4J and JIRA? We welcome your thoughts. Please see the user-contributed notes.