Transfer Jira URL from localhost:8081 to domain

[David Kepic]

Hello, 

I want to trasfer Jira's URL from localhost:8081 to jira.davidcubesvk.com or better davidcubesvk.com/jira.

Firstly, I tried it with jira.davidcubesvk.com. I searched around google and Atlassian forums, but, everything was OK, I set up URL redirect (masked) record on my domain's hosting service with redirect to numberIP:8081, but, when I loaded page jira.davidcubesvk.com, page thumbnail loaded, but also, only blank page loaded. Can somebody help me, please?

*You can go to jira.davidcubesvk.com if you want to see what's happening.

[David Kepic]

If I understand correctly, I changed the main domain URL target to <ip>:8081 - Jira server. But still, shows only that as before. What should I do? 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

You need the domain to resolve to your Jira server, not a specific port.

If your Jira is running on 123.456.123.456/jira:8081, then you need davidcubesvk.com to resolve to 123.456.123.456

[David Kepic]

I have Jira server running on <ip>:8081 and domain is already pointing user to that <ip>. That was pre-configured.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

So have you changed the "context" for the connector?  <jira install>/conf/server.xml has a connector in it with a context="<something>" - this <something> should be blank if you just want to use jira on davidcubesvk.com  but may contain something if you want to run it on a sub-domain

[David Kepic]

I have just found out that fault is in my domain. I have configured URL Redirect Record and it must be A Record. Now, as you can see, I can access Jira on davidcubesvk.com:8081. Now, I just want to hide that port. How can it be done?

And yes, if I set up that context to "/jira", Jira server will be accessible from davidcubesvk.com/jira without port?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

No, the port and the url are different things.  You will need to change the server.xml to add the /jira to make it run under that url (and adjust the base url too), but the port is another thing.

To run on port 80 (which technically you still need to add to a service, but 99.9% of browsers and services will assume http: means port 80 so the end-user doesn't need to put it in or see it), you need to change the port named in the connector. 

But you may also need to do some security configuration as well - by default, Linux won't let you run services on ports lower than 1024, so you either have to run it as "root" (not recommended), use setuid to run it, or chain the networking with iptables - see https://wiki.apache.org/tomcat/HowTo for the last two.

[David Kepic]

Ok, so step by step.

1. Change context in server.xml to context="/jira".

2. Change port in connector from 8081 to 80.

3. What should be Base URL? IP, IP/jira, domain or domain/jira?

4. Restart Jira.

And, the Apache I have installed is running on port 80. Wouldn't be that problem?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Sorry for the delay, distracted this week

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. domain/jira
4. Yes

However, yes, if you want to run Jira on port 80, you will need to stop anything else running on that port (ports are 1:many - you can only run one service on a port at a time, but with many connections from clients)

If you have Apache for something else and you still need that, then you might as well move to a proxy - leave Jira on 8081, and tell Apache "when someone lands on domain/jira (port 80), go to ip:8081/jira to get it".  You'll need to add proxy settings to the Jira connector, but it'll mean you can still run Apache.

[David Kepic]

Thank you for your explanation. I think, I understand literally nothing.

How can be domain routing bad, when it's only redirecting user to <ip>:8081 - where I always access Jira from -, just in masked mode...

I think I am done with my brain here... Still, if you have time, you can look in my domain configuration if you want........

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

It's the redirection - this is not the right thing to do.  A redirect means "when you land on X, point them to Y". 

Imagine watching a TV - you stick it on BBC 1 on channel 101 and get a message pop up saying "not available here, please go visit channel 442".  That's a "redirect".

What you actually need is your domain to serve up BBC 1 on channel 101 so there's no change to where you land.

[David Kepic]

Thanks, first thing that I can imagine :-). Anyways, then, what should I do?

As you have seen, I sent how I have configured my domain. It's URL Redirect Record and it doesn't work. There is how I did it: https://www.namecheap.com/support/knowledgebase/article.aspx/579/2237/which-record-type-option-should-i-choose-for-the-information-im-about-to-enter. What should I do? 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Stop trying to use "redirect" and get namecheap to do it via a proxy or direct access instead.  Redirection is useless to you.

[David Kepic]

Since I don't have proxy server, I will do it via direct access. So, what type of record should I use?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

You need your domain to resolve the url you want to use to the Jira server.  If you want to run Jira on davidcubesvk.com/jira for example, you need davidcubesvk.com to land on your Jira server.

We don't know what your hosting provider is doing to do that

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Try setting the domain to point to your Jira server - no trying to redirect ports or services.  Make it so jira.davidcubesvk.com points directly to your Jira server, and then try jira.davidcustsvk.com:8081

[David Kepic]

It already is, nothing happens. I am accessing Jira directly through numberIP:8081 as you can see on this pricture:

Here is the base url in system configuration:

My domain is hosted on namecheap.com. This is my configuration:

Everything works fine for other records, this works too, but as I said, only empty page appears... Thank you for your help!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

How are you presenting Jira through the host?

You've shown us the settings for a "redirect", but this is not telling a service to present Jira on a url, it's just saying "if you land here, go there".

Where are you actually running Jira and how is the proxy being set up?

[David Kepic]

As I said, I have Jira configured as default.

And about proxy, I can't really tell you. I am developing programs and I want issues with them to be solved through Jira. These things are kind of not in radius of that I know. Sorry...

But, I know only one thing. I have nothing configured up, it's only VPS with Apache, MySQL installed. Except that, I have nothing configured.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I'm afraid there's nothing more I can help you with here, I think you simply have a problem with the domain mapping that is out of my field.

To restate the problem - you have a jira running on a server fine on ip:8081.  You want it to serve up on davidcubesvk.com/jira and you've got control of that domain.  But whatever it is doing, it's not directing incoming connections to davidcubesvk.com to your jira server. I'm afraid, without any information on how that is being done, we are a bit stuck.

[David Kepic]

You know, but I think, it's not domain's problem. If the domain wasn't configured correctly, browser will show something like server refused to connect. But, in this case page's icon loads and blank page. So, I think instead of domain there is problem in Jira configuration.

What should I change in Jira configuration? Base URL or what?

If you still believe in that problem is in domain, you can tell me, what record should I make or what. In the last case, I can give you access to domain provider account, so you will look by yourself...

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I don't know how your domain is configured, but I am sure it is the domain configuration.

This is because your Jira is working fine on <ip address>:8081 and the symptoms you are seeing when you try to use the domain is that you're not reaching Jira.  So the domain is not correctly landing in the right place.

The usual way I set up a Jira with a domain is with a reverse proxy.  I'll explain that because it may help inform what you need to do with your domain.

So, I have a system set up as:

• Jira Server running on 198.162.1.12:8080
• Proxy server on a separate machine, listening on 198.162.1.47:443
• My router is connected to the internet on <internet ip>, and there is a domain set up to map <domain> -> <internet ip>

Whatever your setup is, it is not doing that mapping correctly.  Something landing on your domain is being passed through to somewhere that Jira is not running.  Something is there, probably the Tomcat that Jira is running on, but the domain is routing to the wrong place.

There are things that you need to line up in Jira - the base url, and the connector schemes if you're using a proxy, but if you get these wrong, you won't see what you are getting - you'll see Jira with errors, not blank pages or refused connections.  The blank pages and refused connections happen when the domain is not looking for Jira in the right place.