Jira Software 7.11.x upgrade notes

Here are some important notes on upgrading to Jira Software 7.11. For details of the new features and improvements in this release, see the Jira Software 7.11.x release notes. 

Upgrade notes

Jira administrators

Upgrade to the DVCS plugin

If your Jira Software Server or Data Center instance is connected to Bitbucket Cloud, it’s through the Jira DVCS connector plugin.

Due to GDPR regulations and the personal data protection they require, we've needed to make some changes to the API's that Bitbucket Cloud has available. These changes happen in two phases. Phase one will be live on Bitbucket Cloud by the 10th of May, 2019, and Phase two will go live on the 1st of September, 2019.

What you need to do as a result is to upgrade your Jira Software instance or upgrade your Jira DVCS connector plugin to the relevant version. For more information, see Jira KB. 

Apache Tomcat upgrade

We've upgraded Apache Tomcat to version 8.5.29.

Some Tomcat configuration files might have changed in the new version, so make sure you don’t copy the old files to the new Jira version. To view all differences, go to Configuration file differences, and compare Tomcat 8.5.6 with 8.5.29.

IPv6 support

We now support running Jira in an IPv6 environment. We’ve taken the dual-stack approach (IPv4 + IPv6), so your IPv4 addresses will still work. In most cases there’s nothing you need to do, however there are a few limitations that you need to be aware of.

• Must allow IPv4 traffic
  Some parts of Jira, listed below, require IPv4. Enabling the IPv4 traffic is not mandatory, but you won't be able to use these features without it.
  
  • Atlassian Marketplace
  • Integration with Atlassian Cloud products
  • Log Analyzer
  • End of Life check
    
    
• Avoid using raw IPv6 addresses anywhere in the Jira configuration
  We recommend that you use hostnames or domain names instead of IPv6 addresses. It's a more reliable way of configuring and accessing both Jira and other Atlassian products.
  
  
• Avoid using raw IPv6 addresses in the browser
  Rich Text Editor won't work if you access Jira through a plain IPv6 address in the browser. It will work when you use a hostname.
  
  
• AWS RDS doesn't support IPv6
  For this reason, our CloudFormation template and Quick Start (deploying Jira Data Center into AWS) will continue to provision an IPv4 VPC.
  
  

• Problems with cache replication for Jira Data Center on Linux
  The cache replication tries to use the IPv4 address instead of IPv6 as an RMI endpoint, and fails if IPv4 is disabled on your system.

  Show me how to work around this...

  If your systems are IPv6 only, you can work around this issue by setting the java.rmi.server.hostname system property to your IPv6 address. For example:

  -Djava.rmi.server.hostname=2600:1f18:674c:af12:b339:cba0:cd27:654b

Plugin developers

See Preparing for Jira 7.11 for any important changes regarding plugins.

Upgrade procedure

Note: Upgrade to a test environment first. Test your upgrades in your test environment before rolling them into production.

If you're already running a version of Jira, please follow these instructions to upgrade to the latest version:

1. Before you upgrade, we strongly recommend that you back up your installation directory, home directory, and database.
2. Read the release notes and upgrade notes for all releases between your version and the latest version.
3. Download the latest version of Jira.
4. Follow the instructions in the Upgrade Guide.

Upgrading from earlier versions?

• 7.0, or later
  Take a look at the upgrade matrix. It lists known issues you should be aware of when upgrading between multiple versions.
  
  
• Earlier than 7.0
  Consult the Migration hub. The Jira 7.0 release introduced significant changes. You must first upgrade to Jira 7.0 (we always recommend the latest bugfix release, in this case 7.0.11) before upgrading to later versions.