Jira Core 8.5.x upgrade notes

Here are some important notes on upgrading to Jira Core 8.5.

For details on the new features and improvements in this release, see the Jira Core 8.5.x release notes. 

 Upgrade notes

Increase pool-max-size

If you're upgrading from Jira 7.x to Jira 8.x we recommend changing the pool-max-size parameter to 40 in your dbconfig.xml before the upgrade. Leaving the default of 20 can sometimes lead to “ResultSet Closed” errors during re-indexing on 8.x. For information on implementing thechange, see  Tuning database connections .

8.5.17: Bundled JRE disables secure connections to MySQL Community Edition 5.7.27 or older over TLS versions 1 and 1.1

Jira 8.5.17 binary installers are bundled with the AdoptOpenJDK 8u291 JRE, which ships with TLS versions 1 and 1.1 disabled by default. This prevents secure connections with MySQL Community Edition 5.7.27 or older compiled with yaSSL.

To ensure that Jira can establish a secure connection with your MySQL database after the upgrade, switch to a version of MySQL Community Edition that supports TLS 1.2. You can choose one of the following solutions:

Recommended solution: Upgrade to MySQL Community Edition 5.7.28 or newer

Because the binary distributions of MySQL Community Edition 5.7.27 and older are compiled with yaSSL, they do not support TLS 1.2 by default. We recommend that you upgrade to MySQL Community Edition 5.7.28 or newer (this version uses the OpenSSL library), and then allow secure connections over TLS 1.2 by either:

• Upgrading the MySQL Connector/J driver to version 8.0.19 or newer.
• Adding the enabledTLSProtocols=TLSv1.2 parameter to the MySQL JDBC connection string in dbconfig.xml.

For more information, see:

• MySQL 5.7 Reference Manual — 2.11 Upgrading MySQL
• Connecting Jira applications to MySQL 5.7

Solution 2: Recompile MySQL Community Edition 5.7.27 or older with OpenSSL

Alternatively, you can recompile version MySQL Community Edition 5.7.27 or older with OpenSSL, and then allow secure connections over TLS 1.2 by either:

• Upgrading the MySQL Connector/J driver to version 8.0.19 or newer.
• Adding the enabledTLSProtocols=TLSv1.2 parameter to the MySQL JDBC connection string in dbconfig.xml.

For more information, see:

• MySQL 5.7 Reference Manual — 2.9.6 Configuring SSL Library Support
• Connecting Jira applications to MySQL 5.7

Solution 3: Re-enable TLS 1 and 1.1 in Java

If required, you can re-enable support for TLS 1 and TLS 1.1 in Java by removing the TLSv1 and TLSv1.1 entries from the jdk.tls.disabledAlgorithms property in <JAVA_HOME>/lib/security/java.security.

8.5.15: Changes in startup files

We've changed several startup files to change the format of GC logs produced by Jira while running with Java 11. Without the change, the logs are impossible to parse with the GCViewer tool and can be frustrating for an admin to work with. 

We've changed the time,uptime to tags,time,uptime,level in the following files:

• bin/set-gc-params.sh file on Linux
• bin/set-gc-params.bat file on Windows
• bin/set-gc-params-service.bat file on Windows

If you don't have any custom changes in those files, you don't need to take any cation. If you do, you'll need to copy your changes to the new files on upgrade.

8.5.4: Support for PostgreSQL 10

We've added PostgreSQL 10 to the list of supported platforms. For more info, see Supported platforms.

8.5.4: G1 GC enabled by default for Java 11

If you’re running Jira with Java 11, Garbage First Garbage Collection (G1 GC) will be enabled by default. We’ve already been recommending this method when tuning garbage collection, so now you’ll get it out of the box. G1 GC is more efficient and improves performance, especially in environments with large Java heap.

*Our performance tests have shown that you might benefit from ParallelGC if you have a relatively small Java heap. The difference is not big, but you can consider switching back to ParallelGC if you’re having problems with performance.

8.5.4: Changes in the issue collector

The upcoming update of the Chrome browser introduces new cookie security features, which would essentially break the issue collectors embedded on separate domains. We’ve fixed this problem, but this brought some changes to how issue collectors work:

• You can no longer match the submitter’s user session to make them the issue reporter. You can still match them by using their email address.

• You don’t have to enable 3rd party cookies to make the issue collector work. We’ve removed this requirement, also dropping some error messages that reminded about it.

• The project and issue key will no longer be displayed in the success message after submitting feedback (unless the project is open to Anyone on the web). We did this to improve security by not disclosing information about projects and issues.

For more info on the issue collector, see Using the issue collector.

OAuth 2.0 support for incoming mail in Jira 8.5.9

With Google and Microsoft planning to disable Basic Authentication, we want to make sure you can still add your comments to Jira and create issues using email. We're adding OAuth 2.0 support so that you can use it as an authentication method for Gmail or Microsoft Exchange online instead of password. 

Create your OAuth integration, then update your incoming mail server and leave the rest to us. We'll make sure the connection with your mail server works seamlessly.  Learn more

Known vulnerability in the BKS-V1 keystore format

If you’re running Jira over SSL, we’d like to bring your attention to a security vulnerability of the BKS-V1 keystore format, provided by the BouncyCastle library. We strongly recommend that you don’t use it in your Jira instance. Learn more

 End of support announcements

In Jira 8.5, we're making the following changes:

• Advance notice: end of support for Internet Explorer 11

  To allow us to continue to take advantage of modern web standards to deliver improved functionality and the best possible user experience across all of our products, we have decided to end support for Internet Explorer 11. 

  Jira 8.5 will be the last version to support Internet Explorer. 

  See End of support announcements  for full details. 

App developers

See Preparing for Jira 8.5 for any important changes regarding apps.

Upgrade procedure

Upgrading from a Jira version 8.x.x? 

See  Upgrading Jira applications  for complete upgrade procedures, including all available upgrade methods and pre-upgrade steps.