Jira application home directory
The Jira home directory contains key data that help define how Jira works. This document outlines the purpose of the various files and subdirectories within the Jira home directory.
If Jira was installed using the automated Windows or Linux installers, the default location of the Jira home directory is:
C:\Program Files\Atlassian\Application Data\JIRA(on Windows) or/var/atlassian/application-data/JIRA(on Linux)
If you install Jira from an archive file, the Jira home directory can be any suitable location that is accessible by your JIRA installation. Typical example locations might be:
C:\jira\home(on Windows) or/var/jira-home(on Linux or Solaris)
However, avoid locating the Jira home directory inside the Jira application installation directory.
For information on specifying the location of the Jira home directory, please see Setting your Jira application home directory.
Important files
dbconfig.xml
This file (located at the root of your Jira home directory) defines all details for Jira's database connection. This file is typically created by running the Jira setup wizard on new installations of Jira or by configuring a database connection using the Jira configuration tool.
You can also create your own dbconfig.xml file. This is useful if you need to specify additional parameters for your specific database configuration, which are not generated by the setup wizard or Jira configuration tool. For more information, refer to the 'manual' connection instructions of the appropriate database configuration guide in Connecting Jira to a database.
jira-config.properties
This file (also located at the root of your Jira home directory) stores custom values for most of Jira's advanced configuration settings. Properties defined in this file override the default values defined in the jpm.xml file (located in your Jira application installation directory). See Advanced Jira configuration for more information.
In new Jira installations, this file may not initially exist and if so, will need to be created manually. See Making changes to the jira-config.properties file for more information. This file is typically present in Jira installations upgraded from version 4.3 or earlier, whose advanced configuration options had been customized (from their default values).
Important subdirectories
data
This directory contains application data for your Jira instance, including attachments (for every version of each attachment stored in Jira).
export
Jira will place its automated backup archives into this directory.
log
Jira will place its logs into this directory. (Note: if the Jira home directory is not configured, then the logs will be placed into the current working directory instead).
The logs will only start showing up once the first log message is written to them. For example, the internal access log will not be created util Jira starts writing to it.
You can change the location of the log file using log4j.properties as described in the documentation on Logging and profiling.
plugins
This is the directory where plugins built on Atlassian's Plugin Framework 2 (i.e. 'Plugins 2' plugins) are stored. If you are installing a new 'Plugins 2' plugin, you will need to deploy it into this directory under the installed-plugins sub-directory.
'Plugins 1' plugins should be stored in the Jira application installation directory.
This directory is created on Jira startup, if it does not exist already.
caches
This is where Jira stores caches including:
- Lucene indexes - see Troubleshoot index problems in Jira server
- OSGi framework caches
These files are vital for Jira performance and should not be modified or removed externally while Jira is running.
See Search indexing for further details.
tmp
Jira uses two temporary directories: <JIRA_HOME_DIR>/tmp and <JIRA_INSTALL_DIR>/temp.
<JIRA_HOME_DIR>/tmp
This is the system's temporary directory. It’s used for runtime functions and also stores cached web resource files, such as batched files (batch.js and batch.css).
<JIRA_INSTALL_DIR>/temp
This is the application temporary directory. This directory stores any temporary content created for various runtime functions such as exporting, importing, file upload, and indexing. It's set by the java.io.tmpdir variable.
You can remove files from this directory while Jira is running, but we recommend that you shut down Jira first before modifying the contents of this directory.