Self-Hosting Jira for Small Teams Part 2: Setting Jira up on First Run

By Joshua Render on August 8, 2018 • ( 2 Comments )

If you haven’t already, complete Self-Hosting Jira for Small Teams Part 1: Installing Jira

At the end of Part 1, you either had the installer launch Jira for you, or you can navigate a web browser to http://localhost:8080/secure/SetupMode!default.jspa

This is a reference to the localhost. That means your computer. You are opening a web browser up and navigating to a spot on your computer. If you have worked with web servers before, this concept should be familiar.

If you haven’t encountered it before, you may be wondering how I can include a link on this page that directly accesses your computer. Don’t worry, I and nobody else can access it on your computer through that link. That is the default file path, and unless Jira changes it, it should only allow you to access it from the computer Jira was installed on. That link takes me to my personal Jira instance installed on my computer, and it will take you to your personal instance of Jira installed on your computer.

That link should take you to the below screen:

You should probably stick with the “Set it up for me” option and click “Continue to MyAtlassian.” This will navigate you off of your localhost and to the Atlassian website.

You may have to make an account with Atlassian if you don’t have one already. Your next screen should give you a pop-up asking if you wish to install a license key on your localhost server. This is by default the 30-day trial license key. Select “Yes” and proceed.

You will then need to make an administrator account. Fill out the information and click “Next.”

It will then go through a set-up process that may take a few minutes…

…and then you are done. Your instance of Jira is ready to go… almost.

You will notice it gives you a link at the bottom of the screen, http://localhost:8080/secure/WelcomeToJIRA.jspa.

You can use that link to start the setup, or you can click the “Let’s get started” button.

You will be asked to choose a language for Jira. Make your selection and click “Continue.”

Then you get to choose an avatar. The idea behind the avatar in Jira is so that you can tell different users apart fairly quickly, so choose a unique image.

To make changes, select “Choose an avatar” and you will be presented with a screen of premade avatars or you can upload your own.

When you are finished messing around, click “Next” on the choose an avatar screen. You will be navigated back to your localhost Jira instance.

If you want to work with sample information to play around and learn Jira, click on “Create sample project.” If you want to start fresh and brand-new, click “Create new project.” I won’t cover the import process here, but the create new project and the see project in action have a very similar process.

Don’t worry if you want to use different choices for different projects. This is just to set up your first project. When you have made your choice, click “Next.”

You will be presented with one of the screens below, depending on your choice:

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From here on out, I chose Scrum. And once I clicked the “Select” button, I was asked to give the project a name and a key. The key can create itself based on the name you enter in, it uses the first letter of each word in the name. This information is already populated if you chose “See a project in action” earlier.