Question on "Migrating Confluence Between Servers"

[Ikhoon Chon]

Hi,

1.
I tried to migrate confluence between servers (On AWS, same OS, same version of confluence 6.8.0, with RDS) but it failed.

I might miss something so again I am going to follow the guide https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/migrating-confluence-between-servers-184150.html , but I got a question on Step 1 in this document.

If I understand correctly, first I need to "install" it but not "configure" it i.e. I should not start server at the end of installation process and stop right before opening the browser to start configuration. And then I need to copy the entire 'confluence home' in the old server to the new server.

But when I copied the confluence home to the new server and open the URL, the initial configuration page was showed up. (Then I had to reconfigure database and others... and failed to run)

I expeced, once it's installed (so 'confluence installation' directory is setup) and old confluence home is copied, it would be enough... but I might be wrong. 

Could you help me to clarify the process?

2.

According to Step 4 in the above guide document, I need to copy the old confluence home including confluence.cfg.xml file.

It contains license info as well as  'server id'.

I believe that the new server shall have new server id - if it's true, just copying the home directory would be ok?

Best regards,

Ikhoon

[Zak Laughton · Accepted solution]

Hi Ikhoon!

I'd be happy to answer your migration questions.

1. Once you replace the <confluence-home> folder, Confluence should start up without a setup prompt as long as the installation folder is pointing to the copied home directory. The file we're concerned about here is <confluence-home>/confluence.cfg.xml. In a new installation, this file will have a "setupStep" parameter that tells Confluence to go to the in-browser setup. In an established instance, however, confluence.cfg.xml will have all relevant data with a "setupStep" status of "complete", which tells Confluence to start up normally (with no in-browser setup).
   
   Since you still saw the in-browser setup, it sounds like your installation was still pointed at the old home directory with the old confluence.cfg.xml file. To be sure you are pointed at the correct, replaced directory, verify that the last line in <confluence-install>/confluence/WEB-INF/classes/confluence-init.properties points to the home directory you copied over.
2. When you copy over the home directory and database, the server ID will be transferred over to the new server, since you are making an exact copy of the old instance. In any case, you won't need to worry about licensing, as licenses are not tied to a specific server ID (For more info, see What is the Confluence Server ID?)

I hope this helps!
-Zak

[Ikhoon Chon]

Hi Zak,

Thank you for your detail explanation.

Now I've successfully moved to other server and it seems all are fine.

The only difference from my previous attempt is to create another MySQL user - I don't know why, but e.g.

'confluence'@'%'

won't work. So I created another user

'confluence'@'new server IP'

and granted all privileges to that.

I'm not sure if failing to MySQL login was a cause to take me to setup page again, but now it is working fine and I'm happy.

Best regards,
Ikhoon