(update)  So the plan is to install the stand-alone version of JIRA on a based CentOS 5.2 system.  This stand-alone version already has a tomcat version in it and a rudimentary database.  However, after we verify the installation, we will switch the connection to a MySQL database and allow connections from outside.

So I downloaded the linux version, unzipped it and placed the files in /usr/bin/ directory.  I renamed the directory base directory to jira.

I added the jira user per the instructions.

When trying to run jira for the first time, I saw in the log file that it did not run due to the JAVA_HOME variable not being set.  I used the ls -al command mentioned in the comments of installing JAVA on the jira site and then used then set the JAVA_HOME variable.  java -version was used to make sure that java was installed.

To run JIRA you must set the JAVA_HOME variable, export it, then start JIRA.  That is from the command prompt.

JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-openjdk

export JAVA_HOME

bin/startup.sh

go to http://localhost:8080 to test

if locked, you must remove the .lck file

1. CD to the JIRA Home directory
2. Run ls -al
3. Run rm .jira-home.lock

So the plan is to install JIRA on a CentOS 5.2 Apache webserver running the TomCat 5.X or 6.X application server.  Apache Tomcat is an open source software implementation of the Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages technologies.

A couple articles I will be using to help me with this task are.

http://geekzine.org/2009/02/19/configure-tomcat-6-java-6-on-centos-52-with-apache-on-port-8080/

I will also be using the official JIRA installation manuals.  They have what appears to be a very extensive and well documented installation guide.

http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA/JIRA+Installation+and+Upgrade+Guide

So I will also be using the following topics

Installing JIRA WAR-EAR

Installing JIRA on Tomcat 5.5

Connecting JIRA to MySQL

Running JIRA in a Virtualised Environment