Migrate to Another Database

This guide applies to situations when you may need to migrate Crowd to another database.

Preparation

Select a new database from one of our Supported Platforms
Perform an XML backup of your existing Crowd server. Make sure that you check the 'Reset Domain' checkbox, otherwise you may be prevented from logging in to the new Crowd Administration Console.
If there is change to the Crowd IP address (i.e. when migrating the instance to an entirely new server), please refer to the additional Preparation steps in this article to prevent your admin being locked out of Crowd: Migrating Crowd Between Servers

From this point on, we will call your existing Crowd server the 'original' server.

Copy the XML backup over to the target server.
Install Crowd on the target server using our installation guide.
- The Crowd version can be the same or higher than the version on the original Crowd server.
- When specifying your Crowd Home directory, make sure you choose a new location and not your original Crowd Home directory.
Run the Setup Wizard.
- When asked for the type of installation, choose 'Import data from an XML backup'. Provide the full path to your XML backup file and import the data.
- When given the option of configuring Crowd to target a database, make sure you choose a new one and not your original Crowd database.
When the import finishes, shut down Crowd.
Locate the crowd.properties file in the target server's Crowd Home directory. (This file will have been generated from the data in the XML backup.) Edit the file and modify the line crowd.server.url so that it points to your new Crowd server.

In your original Crowd server, you can now remove the IP address or hostname you added during the preparation steps. This will help prevent you from accidentally logging into your original Crowd server.
Start Crowd on the new server. You should be able to authenticate and access Crowd using the same credentials as on your original Crowd server.

For any application you are going to test against this new Crowd server, you will need to modify the application's crowd.properties file to point to this new server.
If you have installed any Crowd plugins or added other customizations, you will need to re-apply them on the new server.

If you encounter any difficulties, please feel free to contact support and let us know which step you are having problems with.