Upgrading Confluence

Before you begin

Before you upgrade Confluence, there's a few questions you need to answer. 

Which upgrade method is the best option?	Tell me more... You can choose to upgrade using the installer, or manually using a zip or tar.gz file. In most cases the installer is the easiest way to upgrade your Confluence instance. You will need to upgrade manually if you are: moving to another operating system or file location as part of this upgrade. upgrading from Confluence 3.5 or earlier upgrading from Confluence 5.6 or earlier and previously used the EAR/WAR distribution to deploy Confluence into an existing application server.  performing a rolling upgrade, and you need to upgrade each node individually.
Are you eligible to upgrade?	Tell me more... To check if software maintenance is current for your license, go to Administration menu , then General Configuration. and select License Details on the left panel to make sure the license support period has not expired. Software maintenance: upgrade at any time during this period.  If your support period has expired, follow the prompts to renew your license and reapply it before upgrading.
Have our supported platforms changed?	Tell me more... Check the Supported Platforms page for the version of Confluence you are upgrading to. This will give you info on supported operating systems, databases and browsers. Good to know: The Confluence installer includes Java (JRE) and Tomcat, so you won't need to upgrade these separately. If you need to upgrade your database, be sure to read the upgrade notes for the Confluence version you plan to upgrade to (and any in-between) to check for any database configuration changes that you may need to make.
Do you need to make changes to your environment?	Tell me more... Newer Confluence versions sometimes require changes to your environment, such as providing more memory or adjusting your reverse proxy settings. Good to know: We use Upgrade Notes to communicate changes that will impact you, such as: Changes to supported databases, memory requirements or other changes that will impact your environment. Features that have significantly changed or been removed in this release. Actions you may need to take in your instance or environment immediately after the upgrade. It's important to read the notes for the version you're upgrading to and those in-between. For example, if you are upgrading from 5.8 to 5.10 you should read the upgrade notes for 5.9 and 5.10.

Plan your upgrade

1. Determine your upgrade path

Long Term Support releases

2. Complete the pre-upgrade checks

1. Check the Upgrade Notes for the version you plan to upgrade to (and any in between). 
     

2. Go to Administration menu , then General Configuration. > Plan your upgrade then select the version you want to upgrade to. This will run some pre-upgrade checks. 
    

3. Go to Administration menu , then General Configuration. > Troubleshooting and support tools to run the health check. 
   
   

   License expired?

   If the software maintenance period included in your license has expired you can keep using Confluence, but you'll need to renew before you can upgrade.

   Go to Administration menu , then General Configuration. > License Details and follow the prompts to renew your license.

   Database character encoding incorrect?

   Database character encoding must be set to UTF8 (or UTF8MB4 for MySQL databases, or AL32UTF8 for Oracle databases). You will not be able to upgrade to the current Confluence versions unless you have the correct character encoding.

     

4. Go to  Administration menu then Manage apps and scroll down to the Confluence Update Check to check the compatibility of your Marketplace apps.
      

5. Choose the version you plan to upgrade to then hit Check.
   
   

   If you have incompatible add-ons...

   If your users rely on particular Marketplace apps, you may want to wait until they are compatible before upgrading Confluence. Vendors generally update their apps very soon after a major release.

   Good to know:

   • You can disable an app temporarily while you upgrade if it is not yet compatible.
   • Compatibility information for Atlassian Labs and other free apps is often not available immediatley after a new release. In many cases the app will still work, so give it a try in a test site before upgrading your production site.

3. Upgrade Confluence in a test environment

1. Create a staging copy of your current production environment. 
   See Create a staging environment for upgrading Confluence for help creating an environment to test your upgrade in.
     

2. Follow the steps below to upgrade your test environment.  
     

3. Test any unsupported user-installed apps, customizations (such as custom theme or layouts) and proxy configuration (if possible) before upgrading your production environment.   

Upgrade Confluence

4. Back up 

1. Back up your database and confirm the backup was created properly. 
   If your database does not support online backups you'll need to stop Confluence first.  
   If you have a MySQL database, make sure your back up includes stored procedures/functions. 
   

   Once you've confirmed your database backup was successful, you can choose to disable the automatic generation of an upgrade recovery file, as this process can take a long time for sites that are medium sized or larger.

    
2. Back up your installation directory
   The installer will completely replace this directory, so any files you've added (such as a keystore or SSL certificate) won't be retained. The installation wizard will back up this directory before starting the upgrade, but you should also back it up manually first. 
     

3. Back up your home directory. 
   The installation wizard gives you the option to also back up your home directory as part of the installation process, but you should also back up this directory manually before starting the upgrade. 
     

   Where is my home directory?

   You can find the location of your home directory in the <installation-directory>/confluence/WEB-INF/classes/confluence-init.properties file.

   This is where your search indexes and attachments are stored. If you store attachments outside the Confluence Home directory, you should also backup your attachments directory. 

5. Download Confluence

Download the installer for your operating system. 

• Latest version https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/download
• Older versions https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/download-archives 

6. Run the installer

1. Run the installer. 
     

   Show me how to do this in Windows...

   Run the .exe file. We recommend using a Windows administrator account.

   If prompted to allow the upgrade wizard to make changes to your computer, choose 'Yes'. If you do not, the installation wizard will have restricted access to your operating system and any subsequent installation options will be limited.

   Show me how to do this in Linux...

   Change to the directory where you downloaded Confluence then execute this command to make the installer executable:

   $ chmod a+x atlassian-confluence-X.X.X-x64.bin

   Where X.X.X is is the Confluence version you downloaded.

   Next, run the installer – we recommend using sudo to run the installer:

   $ sudo ./atlassian-confluence-X.X.X-x64.bin

   You can also choose to run the installer with root user privileges.

     

2. Follow the prompts to upgrade Confluence:
    
   
   1. When prompted choose Upgrade an existing Confluence installation (for Linux users this is option 3).
        
   2. Make sure the Existing Confluence installation directory suggested by the wizard is correct (especially important if you have multiple Confluence installations on the same machine).
        
   3. Back up Confluence home is strongly recommended. This will create a .zip backup of the Confluence home and installation directories.
        

   4. The installation wizard notifies you of customizations in the Confluence Installation directory. Make a note of these as you'll need to reapply them later.

      There are some limitations...

      The installation wizard's ability to notify you about customizations will depend on how your existing Confluence instance was installed: 

      • If your current Confluence instance was installed using the installer, the wizard will check the entire Confluence Installation directory.
      • If your current Confluence instance was installed manually it will only check the confluence subdirectory of the Confluence Installation directory. The installation wizard will not notify you of modifications in any other directory, for example modifications to start-up scripts under the bin directory or modifications to the server.xml file (such as an SSL configuration). 

      You won't be notified about files you've added to the installation directory, so be sure to back them up first.

3. The wizard will shut down your Confluence instance and proceed with the upgrade. Once complete, it will restart Confluence and you can then launch Confluence in your browser to confirm the upgrade was successful.
    
   Depending on the size of your instance and the number of upgrade tasks to be run, this step may take a few minutes or several hours.

After the upgrade

7. Copy your database driver

8. Reinstall the service if required (Windows only)

If you run Confluence as a service on Windows you should delete the existing service then re-install the service by running <install-directory>/bin/service.bat.

This makes sure the service gets the most recent JVM options. 

9. Re-apply any modifications

During the upgrade the wizard migrated the following from your existing Confluence installation:

• TCP port values in your <install-directory>/conf/server.xml file. 
• Location of your Confluence home directory in <install-directory>/confluence/WEB-INF/classes/confluence-init.properties.
    

All other customizations, including CATALINA_OPTS  parameters in your  <install-directory>/bin/setenv.sh / setenv.bat  files, need to be reapplied manually.  

10. Update your apps (add-ons)

You can update any apps that are compatible with the new version of Confluence.

1. Go to 

   Administration menu then Manage apps

2. Update your apps to the supported versions.

11. Update your reverse proxy and check you can access Confluence

Troubleshooting