The Confluence EAR-WAR edition is intended for deployment into an existing J2EE application server. To use this method of installation, you or your application server administrator must already know how to deploy a web application on the application server of choice. If not, please use the Confluence Standalone edition instead.

On this page:

System Requirements for Confluence EAR-WAR Edition

  1. Please check the Confluence system requirements.
  2. In addition to the above requirements, the EAR-WAR edition requires an application server. Here are our guidelines on compatible and supported servers:

    Supported and Compatible J2EE Application Servers

    Confluence supports the following application servers, provided they are running on a Windows, Unix (NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solarix, Linux), Mac OS X on X86 or X86-64 processors.

     

    Supported in Confluence 2.0 to 2.7

    Supported in Confluence 2.8 (APR/2008)

    Works with Confluence 2.8 (star)

    Apache Tomcat

    4.1, 5.0 and 5.5

    5.5.20+ (released SEPT/2006)

    5.0.30+

    BEA Weblogic

    8.1 SP3 and above

    9.2.x (released OCT/2006)

    8.1.x to 9.1.x, 10.x

    IBM Websphere Application Server 

    5.1.1.3 and above

    6.1.x (released DEC/2006)

    6.0.x

    Caucho Resin

    2.1.11 and above

    2.1.16 (released FEB/2005)

    3.0.x, 3.1.x

    JBoss

    4

    4.0.5+, 4.2.x (released NOV/2006, MAY/2007)

    4.0.0 to 4.0.4

    Orion

    2.0.2 and above

    unsupported

    unsupported

    (star) Column labelled 'Works with' as opposed to 'Supported in': We assume that Confluence works fine with these application server versions. But please be aware that we don't test these versions regularly and that we may ask you to upgrade to a supported version before we can provide more detailed support.

    For Confluence 2.8 and later, zOS, AIX and HPUX are not supported; neither are processors other than X86. If you can get these application servers running on another operating system, we will try to help you but may ask you to move to a supported operating system before we can provide more detailed support.

    Please see configuration guides for supported application servers.

    If you have no preference, we recommend using Confluence Standalone which includes Apache Tomcat.

    Potentially Compatible Application Servers

    (warning) The following application servers are untested and not supported.
    J2EE Application Servers:

    Non J2EE Application Servers:

    Known incompatible J2EE Application Servers
    RELATED TOPICS

  3. If deploying as an unexploded WAR, Ant 1.3 or later is required.
  4. Confluence, the database and application server must use the same character encoding. UTF-8 is recommended.
  5. If you are installing Confluence EAR-WAR on Unix, Linux or Solaris, please ensure that the required X11 libraries are installed.

    Support

    If you deploy Confluence on an unsupported server, server-related issues cannot be covered by Atlassian technical support. You can try Atlassian Answers for assistance instead.

Installing Confluence EAR-WAR on Tomcat

(info) This section gives detailed instructions for installing Confluence EAR-WAR edition on an Apache Tomcat 5.0 or 5.5 server. If you are using a different server, please use these instructions as a guideline and refer to the general guidelines below.

Step 1. Download and Extract EAR-WAR Installation File

  1. Download the Confluence EAR/WAR zip file. (You need to click the 'Show all' link to see the EAR/WAR zip file.)
  2. Please check your unzip program before extracting the downloaded zip file. Some archive-extract programs cause errors when unzipping the Confluence zip file:
    • Windows users must avoid the Windows built-in unzip utility, as it doesn't extract all the files. Use a third-party unzip program like 7Zip or Winzip.
    • Solaris users will need to use GNU tar to handle the long file names.
  3. Extract the downloaded zip file.
    • Tomcat users, take care not to unzip the Confluence installation into your Tomcat webapps folder, as this may cause Confluence to be deployed more than once.
  4. You have now unzipped your Confluence installation directory, which should contain the version number e.g. confluence-2.6.0 or confluence-2.7.2. This directory will be later referred to as the Confluence installation directory. Inside is a confluence subdirectory, referred to later as the Confluence WAR directory. Record the absolute path to the Confluence WAR directory.

Step 2. Check for Patches

Review the Release Notes for your Confluence version and apply any patches listed.

Step 3. Check for Application Server Issues

(info) Note that these are optionals and you do not need to go through them to make Confluence EAR/WAR run for the first time. They are listed here only to assist you in getting the best matching configuration for your production requirement.

Step 4. Review Application Server Memory Allocation

Confluence requires a maximum heap allocation (Xmx) of at least 256 MB for normal operation. See Increasing Application Server Memory.

(warning) Do not configure a heap allocation so large that it does not allow enough remaining physical memory for your operating system and other applications on the server. The heap allocation should be large enough for Confluence, but not so large that the memory would be paged to disk during normal operation.

Step 5. Configure confluence-init.properties

  1. Inside the Confluence installation directory, edit ...confluence/WEB-INF/classes/confluence-init.properties in a text editor.
  2. Set the confluence.home property to a directory of your choosing. We suggest using different paths for your installation and home directories. This will facilitate upgrades. This is the directory that will contain all of Confluence's configuration, backup and attachment files.

Step 6. Edit Tomcat Context Descriptors

  1. Create a file called confluence.xml in your Tomcat installation's conf/Catalina/localhost directory. (If you have set up a different hostname for your tomcat instance, please specify that instead of localhost.)
  2. Open your new confluence.xml and add these lines: 
    <Context path="/confluence" docBase="c:/applications/confluence-2.1.3/confluence" debug="0" reloadable="true">
</Context>
    (info) To run Confluence without a context path of "/confluence", change the path in the Context tag to an empty string (""). If this is Tomcat, name the file ROOT.xml rather than confluence.xml. If you wish to change the context path to a different name, change both the context path and the name of the xml file.
  3. For docBase, specify the value you noted down earlier.
  4. Restart Tomcat, and Confluence should be accessible under /confluence/ on your Tomcat server.
  5. Follow the link below to proceed with the setup wizard.

Installing on Another Application Server

(info) This section contains general guidelines for those who wish to install Confluence EAR-WAR on a server other than Apache Tomcat.

  1. Review any known issues and other documentation associated with your web server:
    Content by label

    There is no content with the specified labels

  2. If your application server requires deploying Confluence as an EAR/WAR, follow these instructions to build the WAR file:
    • For Windows users:
      1. Open the command line prompt
      2. Navigate to the Confluence installation directory
      3. Run the command build war
    • For Linux users:
      1. Open a terminal window
      2. Navigate to the Confluence installation directory
      3. Add executable mode to build.sh — chmod +x build.sh
      4. Run build.sh
      5. The WAR file is now located in the dist subfolder in your Confluence installation directory

Next Step is the Confluence Setup Wizard

When you visit the Confluence application in your browser, the Confluence Setup Wizard should appear. The first screen is a prompt for you to enter your license key. Follow the instructions on the screens, and read more guidelines on the Confluence Setup Wizard.

TROUBLESHOOTING

Installation Troubleshooting FAQ

RELATED TOPICS

Confluence Setup Guide
Start Confluence automatically on Windows as a Service
Configuration Guide
Confluence Home Directory
Confluence Cluster Installation
Fedora or RHEL/Centos Install Guide — Contributed by a Confluence user
Known Issues with Enterprise or Webhosting environments
Pull down RSS Feeds or use the Repository plugin through a web proxy
Setting the JAVA_HOME Variable in Windows
Setup a mail session in standalone version
Confluence Documentation Home
Confluence Main FAQ

Except where otherwise noted, content in this space is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia License.