KB : Jira Server + Ngrok for troubleshooting and demonstration

The purpose of this guide is to help you to use a local Jira server for troubleshooting issues that require our apps to connect to the internet or receive outbound connections.

Installing and configuring Java and Jira

Download the installer from: https://adoptopenjdk.net/

Open

For Jira 8 and above, you can install version 11. If you are going to need Jira 7.13+ then you need JDK 8.

After the installation, you will have it on /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/adoptopenjdk-11.jdk.

Once you have installed the AdoptOpenJDK, you will need to set the $JAVA_HOME variable that is required by Jira.

For that, you will need to path of your JDK (the one above). And I always add /Contents/Home for it to work. So in the default path, it will be: /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/adoptopenjdk-11.jdk/Contents/Home.

To set, just add to your shell profile.

Edit the file and add the following line to the end:

Make sure the path is correct. Yours can be slight different than this documentation.

Downloading, installing and configuring Jira

You can download Jira from https://atlassian.com/download . Just select Jira Software to begin with as you can install more later.

After getting the file, unzip and move to where you would like to have Jira installed.

I recommend creating a deployments directory on your home directory. IE: ~/deployments/.

So you would have:

The Jira-Home directory

This is the directory where Jira stores files from users (attachments, add-ons, logs, etc…)
For these testing purposes, you can add this inside the Jira-Install directory.

Following this structure, you can have the Jira-Home like:

After creating it, you will need to ‘tell’ Jira where this is. So edit the jira-application.properties file that is in Jira-Install/atlassian-jira/WEB-INF/classes. and set it with:

Starting Jira

That is it! Once you have set the $JAVA_HOME, installed and configured Jira, you are ready to start it.

For that, from the terminal, just call the start-jira.sh script. For example, when you are at the home of the Jira-Install:

Then fire up your browser of choice and load http://localhost:8080

Installing and configuring ngrok

Navigate to https://ngrok.com and I recommend signing up for an account so you can use more features.

After downloading the zip file, you just need to unzip at a directory (IE: ~/deployments/ngrok) and connect your account. This is done by obtaining the auth_token at the website and running the following command:

Then, while Jira is already up and running, you can start it:

The output will be something like:

So now, if you navigate to http://2370-89-77-187-161.ngrok.io you will be able to load your local Jira from the internet.

Installing Spartez Software apps

From there, you can navigate in Jira to Administration → Apps → Find New Apps and install any of our Applications (complete list). If you need a license, you can pick from https://appfire.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/SP/pages/155519343 or simply get a timebomb license that allows you to install any app and use it for a few hours.

And now that your Jira is accessible from the internet, you can fully use:

• Whiteboards OAuth integration for suers

• Chat in a web-page that is not local and customers can try during a demonstration

• TFS4JIRA Check-ins

• Agile Poker sessions where you can invite the customer to join a session as a participant or observer.