Starting with the release of Confluence 1.4.3, and stretching through the next three major releases, Confluence will be transitioning from using the Glue library to provide a SOAP remote API, to using Apache Axis. Unfortunately, while the SOAP services will stay the same, the WSDL that these libraries generate to interact with the same services will change, so SOAP applications that interact with Confluence will need to migrate with us.

The migration should be relatively painless. Since the underlying objects represented by the WSDL are still the same, the process should involve regenerating your SOAP stubs, and a few cosmetic code changes.

The XML-RPC API is unaffected by this change.

Current Status

1.4.3 and 1.5/2.0

Deploy Axis SOAP service alongside Glue

(tick)
Completed

(unscheduled)

Allow configuration of default SOAP provider, the default at installation being Axis

(error)
Incomplete

(unscheduled)

Remove Glue SOAP provider

(error)
Incomplete

Progress on these issues can also be tracked via CONF-3141

The Plan

As of version 1.4.3, Confluence ships with three SOAP endpoints:

Endpoint

WSDL URL

Provider

/rpc/soap/confluencesoapservice-v1

/rpc/soap/confluenceservice-v1.wsdl

Glue

/rpc/soap-glue/confluencesoapservice-v1

/rpc/soap-glue/confluenceservice-v1.wsdl

Glue

/rpc/soap-axis/confluencesoapservice-v1

/rpc/soap-axis/confluenceservice-v1?wsdl

Axis

The Axis and Glue providers produce slightly different WSDL URLs

Third-party SOAP RPC Plugins deployed in Confluence will be similarly deployed in three locations

Over the next three major Confluence releases we will:

  1. Make the provider of /rpc/soap/confluenceservice-v1 configurable, then
  2. Change the default provider to Axis (but leave it configurable), then finally
  3. Remove the Glue provider entirely

What This Means for SOAP Clients

Confluence major releases occur every three or four months. Thus, authors of SOAP clients should keep in mind this timeline, starting with the release of Confluence 2.0 (November 2005)

0-3 months

  • All existing SOAP clients written against the Glue provider will continue to function normally.
  • New clients should be written to the Axis provider in /rpc/soap-axis
  • Existing clients should change their SOAP endpoints to point to /rpc/soap-glue (or, better still, move directly to Axis)

3-6 months

  • Confluence will require configuration to work with any client of the Glue provider that has not changed its endpoint
  • New clients should be written to the Axis provider in /rpc/soap-axis
  • Existing clients will need to migrate to the Axis provider

6+ months

  • Confluence will no longer work with clients written against the Glue provider
  • Both /rpc/soap and /rpc/soap-axis endpoints will continue to be served by the Axis provider