Migrating Confluence between servers

This page describes how to move Confluence between physical servers using the same or a different operating system.

It doesn't cover database migration or upgrading your Confluence version. We suggest you do each of these steps separately.

On this page:

Transferring Confluence to another server 

To transfer Confluence to another server you will copy the home and install folders straight into an identical external database and user management setup. If your new server is using a different operating system there may be some additional changes at step 4. 

  1. Run the Confluence installer on your new server
  2. Shut down Confluence on both your old and new servers
  3. If you're using Oracle or MySQL, copy the drivers from your old server to the new one
  4. Delete the contents of the home directory on your new Confluence server, then copy in the contents of the home directory from your old Confluence server. 

  5. Make any additional changes required for your environment.

    If you're changing the location of the home directory...

    If the path to your home directory is different on the new server open the Confluence_install_directory/confluence/WEB-INF/classes directory and edit confluence-init.properties by changing the line starting with 'confluence.home='.

    If you're moving your database...

    If you have also moved your database from one server to another you can change the JDBC URL in <confluence.home>/confluence.cfg.xml if you are using a direct JDBC connection or in the definition of your datasource (if you are connecting via a datasource).

    If your new server has a different operating system...

    If you're migrating from Windows to Linux, you'll need to replace the backslashes with forward slashes in the following lines in confluence.cfg.xml:
     

    <property name="attachments.dir">${confluenceHome}/attachments</property>
    <property name="lucene.index.dir">${localHome}/index</property>
    <property name="webwork.multipart.saveDir">${localHome}/temp</property>


    If you're migrating from Linux to Windows, you'll need to replace the forward slashes with backslashes in the following lines in confluence.cfg.xml:
     

    <property name="attachments.dir">${confluenceHome}\attachments</property>
    <property name="lucene.index.dir">${localHome}\index</property>
    <property name="webwork.multipart.saveDir">${localHome}\temp</property>
  6. Copy the <confluence-install>/conf/server.xml file from your old server to the same location on your new server

  7. If you use a data source, ensure the data source points to the new database. See Configuring a datasource connection.
  8. Start Confluence, then head to General configuration > License Details to add your license key

We strongly recommend you perform a rebuild of your content indices after performing a migration, to ensure Confluence search works as expected.


Last modified on Sep 29, 2023

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