Running JIRA over SSL or HTTPS

When web applications are being accessed across the internet, there is always the possibility of usernames and passwords being intercepted by intermediaries between your computer and the ISP/company. It is often a good idea to enable access via HTTPS (HTTP over SSL) and make this a requirement for pages where passwords are sent. Note, however, that using HTTPS may result in slower performance. In some cases where issue data is sensitive, all pages should be accessed via HTTPS.

Please note that Atlassian Support will refer SSL support to the institution that issues the Certificate. We provide this documentation for reference.

The process of enabling SSL access is specific to each application server, but the process for specifying which pages require protection is generic.

This procedure is a general guide for the way to configure Tomcat with HTTPS and only covers the common installation types of JIRA. It is by no means a definitive or comprehensive guide to configuring HTTPS and may not be applicable to your specific integration.

For JIRA Windows Standalone installations

Since JIRA 3.8, Java comes bundled with JIRA Windows Standalone. It is this bundled JRE (Java Runtime Environment) that is used to run Tomcat by default, and which must be updated with the SSL certificates.
The term <install-dir> is used frequently in this document which refers the the installation directory of JIRA. The JIRA Installation Directory KB shows you how to determine this for your particular installation.

On this page:

Running JIRA over HTTPS

The following flowchart shows the process involved in configuring HTTPS on Tomcat. Click the links below this chart to go to the instructions for that step.

Configure HTTPS in Tomcat

Edit conf/server.xml , and at the bottom before the </Service> tag, add this section (or uncomment it where you find it) in Tomcat 6:

     <script> window.SyntaxHighlighter.config.clipboardSwf = '/s/1814/13/2/_/download/resources/com.atlassian.confluence.ext.newcode-macro-plugin:clipboard/clipboard.swf'; </script> 
     
       1. 
       < Connector port = "8443" maxHttpHeaderSize = "8192" SSLEnabled = "true"   
      
       2. 
       maxThreads = "150" minSpareThreads = "25" maxSpareThreads = "75"   
      
       3. 
       enableLookups = "false" disableUploadTimeout = "true" useBodyEncodingForURI = "true"   
      
       4. 
       acceptCount = "100" scheme = "https" secure = "true"   
      
       5. 
       clientAuth = "false" sslProtocol = "TLS" />

This enables SSL access on port 8443 (the default for HTTPS is 443, but just as Tomcat uses 8080 instead of 80 to avoid conflicts, 8443 is used instead of 443 here).

JIRA 4.1 Standalone comes with Tomcat 6 which requires SSLEnabled="true" to be added to the Connector tag above. We will include this by default soon- http://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRA-20963

^Back to the flowchart

Generate Self-Signed Certificate

Self-signed certificates are useful in cases where you require encryption but do not need to verify the website identity.
They are commonly used for testing and on internal corporate networks (intranets).

Due to the certificate not being signed by a Certification Authority (CA), users may get prompted that the site is untrusted and may have to perform several steps to "accept" the certificate before they can access the site. This usually will only occur the first time they access the site.

The following approach to create the certificate uses Java's keytool , and has been formatted for use with Java 1.6.
There are other tools for generating certificates such as openSSL which are not discussed in this procedure.

When running the following keytool command you will be prompted with:

What is your first and last name?

Instead of entering your first and last name as specified, you must enter the fully qualified hostname of the server running JIRA. This is the same as the name you would type in your web browser after the http:// section to access your JIRA installation. When the client web browser examines the certificate, it checks this field, and makes sure that it matches the hostname. If it doesn't, it may prevent access to the site, and at the very least will generate pop-up messages saying that there is a mismatch. An example of a qualified hostname is: support.atlassian.com

The keytool utility will also prompt you for two passwords: the keystore password and the key password for Tomcat. You must use the same value for both passwords, and the value must be either:

"changeit" (this is the default value Tomcat expects), or
if you use a value other than "changeit", you must also specify it in conf/server.xml . You must add the following attribute to the Connector tag described above:
```
keystorePass="<password value>"
```

Windows Standalone

"<install_dir>\jre\bin\keytool" -genkey -alias tomcat -keyalg RSA

Windows WAR/EAR

"%JAVA_HOME\bin\keytool" -genkey -alias tomcat -keyalg RSA

Unix/Linux

$JAVA_HOME/bin/keytool -genkey -alias tomcat -keyalg RSA

This will create (if it doesn't already exist) a new .keystore file located in the home directory of the user you used to run the keytool command.

You will now need to export the certificate to make it ready for importing into the Trust-store with the following command:

Windows Standalone

"<install_dir>\jre\bin\keytool" -export -alias tomcat -file file.cer

Windows WAR/EAR

"%JAVA_HOME\bin\keytool" -export -alias tomcat -file file.cer

Unix/Linux

$JAVA_HOME/bin/keytool -export -alias tomcat -file file.cer

Next, import the certificate into the Trust-store .

^Back to the flowchart

Obtain CA Certificate

Digital Certificate that are issued by trusted 3rd party CAs (Certification Authority) provide verification that your Website does indeed represent your company, thereby verifying your company's identity. Many CAs simply verify the domain name and issue the certificate, whereas other such as VeriSign verifies the existence of your business, the ownership of your domain name, and your authority to apply for the certificate, providing a higher standard of authentication.

A list of CA's can be found here .
Some of the most well known CAs are:

Verisign
Thawte
CAcert (relatively new CA, providing free CA certificates)

Next, import the certificate into the Trust-store .

^Back to the flowchart

Import Certificate into the Trust-store

Your SSL Vendor may have different instructions, please refer to them for proper certificate installation. Examples include GoDaddy and VeriSign

Assuming your certificate is called "file.cer" whether obtained by a CA or self-generated, the following command will add this certificate to the Trust-store:

Windows Standalone

"<install_dir>\jre\bin\keytool" -import -alias tomcat -file file.cer -keystore "<install_dir>\jre\lib\security\cacerts"

Windows WAR/EAR

"%JAVA_HOME\bin\keytool" -import -alias tomcat -file file.cer -keystore "%JAVA_HOME%\jre\lib\security\cacerts"

Unix/Linux

This step must be performed as the root user, or with the use of sudo

$JAVA_HOME/bin/keytool -import -alias tomcat -file file.cer -keystore $JAVA_HOME/jre/lib/security/cacerts

Next, proceed to the step on redirecting certain pages to HTTPS .

^Back to the flowchart

Redirecting certain pages to HTTPS

Although HTTPS is now activated and available, the old HTTP URLs (http://localhost:8080 ) are still available. In most situations one wants these URLs to continue working, but for some to redirect to their https equivalent. This is done by editing WEB-INF/web.xml , and adding the following section at the end of the file, before the closing </web-app> :

     <script> window.SyntaxHighlighter.config.clipboardSwf = '/s/1814/13/2/_/download/resources/com.atlassian.confluence.ext.newcode-macro-plugin:clipboard/clipboard.swf'; </script> 
     
       01. 
       < security-constraint >   
      
       02. 
       < web-resource-collection >   
      
       03. 
       < web-resource-name >all-except-attachments</ web-resource-name >   
      
       04. 
       < url-pattern >*.js</ url-pattern >   
      
       05. 
       < url-pattern >*.jsp</ url-pattern >   
      
       06. 
       < url-pattern >*.jspa</ url-pattern >   
      
       07. 
       < url-pattern >*.css</ url-pattern >   
      
       08. 
       < url-pattern >/browse/*</ url-pattern >   
      
       09. 
       </ web-resource-collection >   
      
       10. 
       < user-data-constraint >   
      
       11. 
       < transport-guarantee >CONFIDENTIAL</ transport-guarantee >   
      
       12. 
       </ user-data-constraint >   
      
       13. 
       </ security-constraint >

This means that all URLs except attachments are redirected from HTTP to HTTPS. IE has a bug which prevents attachments like .doc files being viewed via HTTPS if SSL protection is forced in web.xml .

Once this change is made, restart JIRA and access http://localhost:8080 . You should be redirected to https://localhost:8443/secure/Dashboard.jspa . The port it redirects to is determined by the redirectPort value you specify in the server.xml file in the HTTP Connector stanza.

There does not seem to be an easy way to make subsequent pages revert to HTTP after logging in via HTTPS - see JRA-7250

Troubleshooting

Here are some troubleshooting tips if you are using a self-signed key created by keytool, as described above.

When you enter "https://localhost:8443" in your browser, if you get a message such as "Cannot establish a connection to the server at localhost:8443", look for error messages in your logs/catalina.out log file. Here are some possible errors with explanations:

SSL + Apache + IE problems

Some people have reported errors when uploading attachments over SSL using IE. This is due to an IE bug, and can be fixed in Apache by setting:

     <script> window.SyntaxHighlighter.config.clipboardSwf = '/s/1814/13/2/_/download/resources/com.atlassian.confluence.ext.newcode-macro-plugin:clipboard/clipboard.swf'; </script> 
     
       1. 
       BrowserMatch  ".MSIE." \   
      
       2. 
       nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown \   
      
       3. 
       downgrade- 1.0 force-response- 1.0

Google has plenty more on this.

Can't find the keystore

java.io.FileNotFoundException: /home/user/.keystore (No such file or directory)

This indicates that Tomcat cannot find the keystore. The keytool utility creates the keystore as a file called .keystore in the current user's home directory. For Unix/Linux the home directory is likely to be /home/<username> . For Windows it is likely to be C:\Documents And Settings\<UserName> .

Make sure you are running JIRA as the same user who created the keystore. If this is not the case, or if you are running JIRA on Windows as a service, you will need to specify where the keystore file is in conf/server.xml . Add the following attribute to the connector tag you uncommented:

keystoreFile="<location of keystore file>"

Incorrect password

java.io.IOException: Keystore was tampered with, or password was incorrect

You used a different password than "changeit". You must either use "changeit" for both the keystore password and for the key password for Tomcat, or if you want to use a different password, you must specify it using the keystorePass attribute of the Connector tag, as described above.

Passwords don't match

java.io.IOException: Cannot recover key

You specified a different value for the keystore password and the key password for Tomcat. Both passwords must be the same.

Wrong certificate

javax.net.ssl.SSLException: No available certificate corresponds to the SSL cipher suites which are enabled.

If the Keystore has more than one certificate, Tomcat will use the first returned unless otherwise specified in the SSL Connector in conf/server.xml .

Add the keyAlias attribute to the Connector tag you uncommented, with the relevant alias, for example:

 <Connector port="8443" maxHttpHeaderSize="8192"
maxThreads="150" minSpareThreads="25" maxSpareThreads="75"
enableLookups="false" disableUploadTimeout="true" useBodyEncodingForURI="true"
acceptCount="100" scheme="https" secure="true"
clientAuth="false" sslProtocol="TLS"
keystoreFile="/opt/local/.keystore"
keystorePass="removed"
keyAlias="tomcat"/>

Configuring HTTPS on Tomcat