how can I point existing crowd installation to new database (had to move it to new server)

[Regina Frost]

I have updated the crowd.cfg.xml file to point to the new db instance, but crowd still isn't hitting it 

[Bruno Vincent]

Hi @Regina Frost

Updating the crowd.cfg.xml file is not the right way to do what you want to do.

Here is a link to Atlassian's documentation regarding Crowd migration to another database: https://confluence.atlassian.com/crowd/migrate-to-another-database-180290495.html

So here is what you must do:

1. Stop Crowd and put back your old crowd.cfg.xml file (I suppose you have a backup of this file)
2. Start Crowd and log into Crowd's console. Then go to the backup section and perform an XML backup
3. Stop Crowd and then delete crowd.cfg.xml (keep a backup of it just in case something would go wrong)
4. Restart Crowd, it will behave as if it was a fresh install and will ask you for your license key. That is absolutely fine.
5. Select 'Import data from an XML backup'
6. Continue the installation and point to your new database server
7. When requested, upload your XML backup.
8. Et voilà! Everything should work as expected. You might need to reset your Crowd SSO domain configuration if you selected to reset it when doing your XML backup at step #2.

[Craig Castle-Mead]

A bit of a late reply, but hopefully this might help others too. While the XML option is what's documented, we've done numerous database migrations in the past for Crowd between mysql > mysql and later psql > psql (standard dump and restore) and updated the connector in the crowd.cfg.xml file and the process worked well. Given it's easier to script a DB dump - we use this then push offsite as part of our DR/BC process.

CCM