Is it possible to use cURL to download Confluence backups (zipped XML files) with Linux?

[Rene Yu]

Just to preface, I'm not too familiar with Linux, and I'm currently working on a Virtual Linux Machine. I want to download a Confluence backup onto the virtual machine without downloading it to my local computer. 

The site backup has already been created and is downloadable. I've tried using cURL with the download link (right-clicking on the "Site_Export.zip" and selecting "Copy Link address") but that downloaded what seems to be a .txt file containing log data.

From what I've seen online, the links that the cURL command works best with contain the desired file at the end (e.g. https://www.examplewebsite.com/filename.txt). The link I acquired in the previous paragraph was in the form https://<instancename>.atlassian.net/wiki/download/temp/filestore/<aSlewOfLettersAndNumbers>

Is it possible to find a link where the Confluence backup is? (I imagine it would also apply to Jira) Does cURL, or other similar tools like wget work?

[Italo Qualisoni [e-Core] · Accepted solution]

Hi @Rene Yu ,

It is possible to automate this process, in fact Atlassian provide a kb about this, see https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirakb/how-to-automate-backups-for-jira-cloud-applications-779160659.html

It will require you scripting knowledge, I recommend you to start testing with a demo environment: https://bitbucket.org/atlassianlabs/automatic-cloud-backup/src/master/

I hope this helps you,

Cheers,

Italo Qualisoni

[Pavel Potcheptsov]

I suspect that you can download that link only if you are logged in. So if you just copy link and then try to use other browser on other machine then you can't download it. Same for curl/wget.

In case your Confluence is on Linux and your Backup machine is also on Linux then you can setup access with SSH by using keys and use scp command to copy files from one machine to other.

Or you can use mount feature and use it as network drive like in MS Windows.

But the best is to avoid automatic backups and use Production Backup Strategy. Manually dump database and make incremental backup of attachments.