Please skip these instructions if you are intend to use or have used the Windows Installer or Linux Installer to install JIRA, since these executable files will install and configure their own JRE to run JIRA. If you are trying to use a different Java/JRE instead of the version bundled with JIRA, please use the How to Use System JRE Instead of Embedded JRE guide.
On this page:
1. Installing Java
JIRA requires Oracle's (formerly Sun's) Java Development Kit (JDK) or Java Runtime Environment (JRE) platform to run. Refer to Supported Platforms for details on the Java platform versions that JIRA supports.
Oracle's JDK/JRE can be downloaded from Oracle's website.
Linux distributions frequently have an open-source implementation of Java called GCJ installed. Do not use this Java platform — it is incomplete and JIRA will not run successfully on it.
You can test whether you have the correct Java platform by running
2. Setting the JAVA_HOME
Once the JDK or JRE is installed, you will need to set the
JAVA_HOME environment variable, whose value is the root directory of the JDK/JRE.
Some JDK/JRE installers set this automatically (check by typing '
echo %JAVA_HOME%' in a Windows command prompt, or '
echo $JAVA_HOME' in a Linux/UNIX console).
On many Linux-based computers, the
JAVA_HOME environment variable is set in the
JAVA_HOME is not defined in this file, you can set it using the following command at a shell prompt, when logged in with 'root' level permissions:
echo JAVA_HOME="path/to/JAVA_HOME" >> /etc/environment
JAVA_HOME is already defined in this file, open the
/etc/environment file in a text editor and modify its value to the appropriate
path/to/JAVA_HOME — that is:
If this environment variable is not set on a Windows-based computer, you can set it in the Control Panel using the following procedure:
- Open the Windows 'Advanced' system properties dialog box:
- On Windows XP-based operating systems, right-click on the My Computer icon on your desktop (or via the Start menu), select 'Properties' and click the 'Advanced' tab.
- On Windows 7-based operating systems, right-click the Computer icon on your desktop (or via the Start menu), select 'Properties', click 'Advanced system settings', select 'Properties' and click the 'Advanced' tab.
- Click the Environment Variables button.
- Click one of the New buttons (to define a new environment variable for your user account, or if available, system-wide).
JAVA_HOMEas the variable name and the directory where you installed Java.
The default path for the bundled JRE with JIRA is
C:\Program Files\Atlassian\JIRA\jre. If using a 32-bit install in 64-bit system, this would be
C:\Program Files (x86)\Atlassian\JIRA\jre.
- After clicking the required 'OK' buttons to save your changes, your
JAVA_HOMEenvironment variable should be available in a new command prompt window. If not or if necessary, restart your computer.
3. Confirming that Java Works
Once the steps above have been done, it should be possible to open a Windows command prompt and type
%JAVA_HOME%\bin\java -version (or
"%JAVA_HOME%"\bin\java -version if your
%JAVA_HOME% value contains spaces) and see output similar to this:
If you subsequently start JIRA and you receive an error like Windows cannot find '-Xms128m', then you may not have correctly set
JAVA_HOME. Please verify step 2 of the procedure above.