atlassian-backup

This tool backs up JIRA Server and Confluence Server databases according the best practices outlined by Atlassian.

MySQL and PostgreSQL databases are supported.

Config file

The backups are controlled by a config file. The config file is written in the Bash shell language. The example config file configs/atlassian-backup.conf contains documentation on the variables that can be set in the config file. It also contains example values.

You can skip JIRA backups by setting JIRA_BACKUP_DIR in the config file to the empty string. Similarly, you can skip Confluence backups by setting CONFLUENCE_BACKUP_DIR to the empty string.

Running atlassian-backup

The default config file location is /etc/atlassian-backup.conf, but ordinarily you specify the config file on the command line:

atlassian-backup [config_file]

As it runs, atlassian-backup tells you what it is doing:

Backing up JIRA
  - Backing up JIRA attachments
/bin/tar: Removing leading `/' from member names
    Created /atlassian/backups/jira/jira-2017-11-07-19-34-attachments.tgz
  - Dumping JIRA database
    Created /atlassian/backups/jira/jira-2017-11-07-19-34-database-dump.sql.gz

Backing up Confluence
  - Backing up Confluence attachments
/bin/tar: Removing leading `/' from member names
    Created /atlassian/backups/confluence/confluence-2017-11-07-19-34-attachments.tgz
  - Dumping Confluence database
    Created /atlassian/backups/confluence/confluence-2017-11-07-19-34-database-dump.sql.

Scheduling automatic backups with cron

On UNIX it is convenient to run atlassian-backup using cron. The following backup scheme backs up JIRA and Confluence each morning.

On the first of every month, a backup is created as usual. Then, it is moved to the monthly/ subdirectory, where it is retained indefinitely. Finally, to save space, all daily backups are removed from $JIRA_BACKUP_DIR and $CONFLUENCE_BACKUP_DIR. Presumably these are just the backups from the preceding month.

Procedure

Log in as user jira.

The monthly backups will be retained in $JIRA_BACKUP_DIR/monthly/ and $CONFLUENCE_BACKUP_DIR/monthly/, where $JIRA_BACKUP_DIR and $CONFLUENCE_BACKUP_DIR are defined in the config file. Create these directories:

mkdir /atlassian/backups/jira/monthly/ /atlassian/backups/confluence/monthly/

Edit your cron table using the command:

crontab -e

Add the following to your cron table:

10 07 * * * /atlassian/atlassian-backup/bin/atlassian-backup /atlassian/atlassia
n-backup/configs/atlassian-backup.conf
# On the first of each month, after the backup runs,
# save the backups from the first and delete the rest.
10 10 1 * * cd /atlassian/backups/confluence && mv confluence-20??-??-01-*z monthly && r
m confluence-20??-??-??-*z
10 11 1 * * cd /atlassian/backups/jira && mv jira-20??-??-01-*z monthly && rm jira-20??-
??-??-*z

History

Matt Kirby of Puppet Labs created jira-backup to back up JIRA alone.

John McGehee of Wave Computing enhanced jira-backup to back up Confluence as well as JIRA. To reflect the new functionality, the application was renamed atlassian-backup.