Transfer of data from old verion Server-Based to Cloud-Based Confluence

[Jack Bennett II]

I have inherited data from an old server-based Confluence documentation install and need to see about importing/uploading/transferring to the newer Cloud-Based solutions.

I have two folders:

FILE.confluence.data
FILE.confluence.mysql

is there a step-by-step or how do I go about making this transfer?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

That's what I think of as a minimal backup of Confluence.  Confluence comes in 3 parts really;

• the installation
• the database (all the content and application config)
• the "data", which usually means "the content of the Confluence home directory", but that contains a tiny bit of config, a load of replaceable or rebuildable things (logs, working files, temporary directories) and, most importantly, all your attached files.  (Unless it's a really old Confluence which could store files in the database)

You can't use those files for any form of migration, they're useless for that.  The only thing they're of any use for is recreating the system they were a backup of.

You will need to

• Identify which version of MySQL this is a backup of (from memory, it's echoed in the first few lines of the .MySQL file.) and install a working version of that
  • Create two empty databases in it
  • Leave one empty, but import the MySQL file you have into the other
• Install a new (old) Confluence of the same version that the backup was taken of
  • You might find that in a file in the "data" directory (check config files and logs if it included them, starting Confluence echoes the version out), dependent on version, but the restored database will contain it somewhere too
• When asked which database, connect it to the empty one
• When it's up and running
  • Stop it
  • Edit <confluence-home>/confluenceconfiguration.xml, finding the name of the database it's now pointed to.  Change it to the restored database
  • Copy or move all the attachments in the old data directory into <confluence-home>/attachments (retain the directory structure)
  • Restart it
  • You will probably need to perform a recover admin password cycle
• Run a re-index before trying to look at the data

Now you can log into it and start preparing it for a Confluence Cloud Migration

There's a lot there, you may find it a lot easier to get a partner to take a look.   You can probably tell I've done this more than once, but there's lots of us who have.