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Installing Confluence Server on a Mac

Marc Maessen

I currently have Confluence server installed on a Linux VPS but I want to install it locally on my Mac to lower costs. Is this even possible? According to the documentation I can't find anything on this.

Accepted answers

Igor M_

Hello Marc,

It is possible to install Confluence on a mac, but only for evaluation purposes. You can't run your production on it, as outlined in Supported Platforms page.

If you want to proceed with evaluation, you can follow Installing Confluence on Linux from Archive File guide

Regards,

Igor

AnnWorley

Hi Marc,

My two cents:

Set JAVA_HOME on your Mac to a supported version.
Create an external database per the doc for your DBMS.
Expand the tar.gz archive of Confluence.
Edit <confluence_install>/confluence/WEB-INF/classes/confluence-init.properties to define Confluence Home - the setup will create this directory but make it different from the directory where you expanded the tar.gz.
Use Terminal to start Confluence with sudo at <confluence_install>/bin/start-confluence.sh.
Open the setup wizard in a browser at http://localhost:8090.
Step through the setup wizard to complete the setup.

I hope this works as well for you as it does for me.

Cheers,

Ann

All comments

Igor M_

Hello Marc,

It is possible to install Confluence on a mac, but only for evaluation purposes. You can't run your production on it, as outlined in Supported Platforms page.

If you want to proceed with evaluation, you can follow Installing Confluence on Linux from Archive File guide

Regards,

Igor

Marc Maessen

Hi Igor,

First of all, WOW, that’s an insanely fast reply :-)

I’ve been running Confluence on a VPS Linux server for almost a year now do I don’t need to evaluate it. I just want to cut costs for now and remove the VPS as I mostly use Confluence for myself right now to generate Wiki pages which I then send to my customers (without the collaberation bit).

That’s why I was looking to install it on my Macbook. But if I understand you correctly, this isn’t possible and I am left with the choice of keeping my VPS (with additional costs), switching to Cloud Confluence or setting up a Linux or Windows machine at home to install Confluence Server on right? Would it be possible to use Windows emulation software on my Mac to keep using it or is there another way?

Igor M_

Hey @Marc Maessen,

Sorry that this reply came late

I did not say it's not possible, merely it's not supported, this means we can't guarantee stability or performance due to unpredictable OS related behavior. So it will still work and you can install and you should have no issues with using it this way for personal needs, but if you encounter technical issues, you may have to switch to something that is supported. So go ahead, install and test the stability, i have multiple instances running for testing purposes on my mac without any issues.

For emulation, I don't think it will work too well either, you may as well just install it directly on mac, would be more stable. alternative setup, is to use a docker container, if you are familiar with that, you can find more details here Official Confluence Server image. Our support team will be able to assist you with any confluence related problems you would encounter when running on docker, but you would have to be confident in managing docker portion of setup yourself.

Hope this helps

Marc Maessen

I did the following after downloading the atlassian-confluence-6.10.0-x64.bin file

1 - chmod a+x atlassian-confluence-6.10.0-x64.bin

2 - sudo ./atlassian-confluence-6.10.0-x64.bin

On my Mac in Terminal I get the following error message after step 2:

Unpacking JRE ...

Starting Installer ...

./atlassian-confluence-6.10.0-x64.bin: line 574: /Users/marcmaessen/Downloads/atlassian-confluence-6.10.0-x64.bin.9747.dir/jre/bin/java: cannot execute binary file

I must be doing something wrong here which is probably blatantly simple, but I can't see it...

Any ideas?

MB_4f5oph

You could also investigate using Docker, whilst Docker for MacOS isn't the best implementation, this could work for your use case. A command such as the below would work:

docker run --restart=unless-stopped -v $HOSTPATH:/var/atlassian/application-data/confluence --name="confluence" -d -p 8090:8090 -p 8091:8091 atlassian/confluence-server

You can find more on the this quick start here, and more about docker for Mac here.

You'll need docker installed, and the use of a Volume ( the -v command ) to enable data persistence. You can optionally change the tag in the command if you need a specific version such as "docker pull atlassian/confluence-server:latest"

AnnWorley

Hi Marc,

My two cents:

Set JAVA_HOME on your Mac to a supported version.
Create an external database per the doc for your DBMS.
Expand the tar.gz archive of Confluence.
Edit <confluence_install>/confluence/WEB-INF/classes/confluence-init.properties to define Confluence Home - the setup will create this directory but make it different from the directory where you expanded the tar.gz.
Use Terminal to start Confluence with sudo at <confluence_install>/bin/start-confluence.sh.
Open the setup wizard in a browser at http://localhost:8090.
Step through the setup wizard to complete the setup.

I hope this works as well for you as it does for me.

Cheers,

Ann

Marc Maessen

Many, MANY thanks for all the effort and the detailed replies Igor, Max AND Ann (just wow !!)

I don't have a lot of time the next few days, but I will try all your amazingly detailed suggestions and will keep you posted on my progress. It'll probably be sometime halfway through next week until I've had the time to try everything out (unless the first attempt is directly successful).

Many thanks again thusfar in any case !!!

Marc Maessen

Hi Ann,

It's been a while and it took some trial and error to get there, but I managed to do every step you mentioned up until step 6. When I try to start Confluence I get the following message:

---------------------

To run Confluence in the foreground, start the server with start-confluence.sh -fg

executing as current user

If you encounter issues starting up Confluence, please see the Installation guide at http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Confluence+Installation+Guide

Server startup logs are located in /Users/Confluence/Documents/atlassian-confluence-6.10.1/logs/catalina.out

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Using Java: /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-10.0.2.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java

2018-08-08 13:43:45,792 INFO [main] [atlassian.confluence.bootstrap.SynchronyProxyWatchdog] A Context element for ${confluence.context.path}/synchrony-proxy is found in /Users/Confluence/Documents/atlassian-confluence-6.10.1/conf/server.xml. No further action is required

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Using CATALINA_BASE: /Users/Confluence/Documents/atlassian-confluence-6.10.1

Using CATALINA_HOME: /Users/Confluence/Documents/atlassian-confluence-6.10.1

Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /Users/Confluence/Documents/atlassian-confluence-6.10.1/temp

Using JRE_HOME: /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-10.0.2.jdk/Contents/Home

Using CLASSPATH: /Users/Confluence/Documents/atlassian-confluence-6.10.1/bin/bootstrap.jar:/Users/Confluence/Documents/atlassian-confluence-6.10.1/bin/tomcat-juli.jar

Using CATALINA_PID: /Users/Confluence/Documents/atlassian-confluence-6.10.1/work/catalina.pid

Existing PID file found during start.

Removing/clearing stale PID file.

Tomcat started.

---------------

After this, when I try to open the setup wizard at Localhost:4380 (an open port which I edited in the server.xml file) it just keeps loading, nothing happens and no setup wizard launches.

Any thoughts where to look next?

Marc Maessen

removed comment, solved due to incorrect java version

Marc Maessen

Removed comment, problem solved due to incorrect java version

Marc Maessen

Igor M_

@Marc Maessen you are very welcome!

Could you mark answers as "Accepted" solutions so that others who come across this thread will know that issue got resolved?

Regards,

Igor

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