Migrating Confluence version 6.2.3 to new server and upgrading

[Michael Lightfoot]

I am planning an upgrade of an old, out of support Confluence 6.2.3 on CentOS 7 which is using MySQL community edition as the database to new servers running CentOS 8.  As the upgrade requires at least MySQL 5.7 (not community edition) I will be migrating the database to PostgreSQL, hopefully 10.x or at least 9.6.

So what is the best strategy?  My initial thoughts were to migrate to PostgreSQL on a new server, then migrate the existing Confluence 6.2.3 to a new server, then upgrading Confluence to 7.9.

Is it feasible to try to install 6.2.3 on a new server?  If so, is that still available (it is way out of support).  Or should I upgrade on the old server and then migrate to a new server?

Are there any particular gotchas I should be aware of?

Thanks in advance

Michael Lightfoot

Delivery Engineer

Sliced Tech

[vishwas · Accepted solution]

Hi @Michael Lightfoot 

Pls go through this high level steps to upgrade and migrate to another DB.

1. Firstly try to install old confluence version(6.2.3) on the new server along with all plugins. [You will get the download links here https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/download-archives] and connect it to PostgreSQL 9.5
2. Take Full Site backup(XML) from the old server and restore on the new server
3. Make a copy of the attachments directory (<CONFLUENCE-HOME-DIRECTORY>\attachments) in your Confluence Home directory. You will need it later to copy your Confluence attachments data into your new Confluence installation.
4. Upgrade to 7.0.x version first, here upgrade PostgreSQL to 9.6 (this version is supported for latest version of confluence also)
5. Then you can upgrade Confluence to latest versions(7.9), there might be several hops in between pls check the upgrade matrix before doing an upgrade
6. At last you can upgrade PostgreSQL to 10.x (if required)

As heads up:

• Make sure that the collation is set right while connecting to PostgreSQL for the first time.
• Step 3 above is important as we tend to miss out the attachments/avatars directory

Pls find the links which maybe useful:

• Migrating confluence to another sever: https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/migrating-confluence-between-servers-184150.html
• Migrating to another DB: https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/migrating-to-another-database-148867.html
• Supported platform for confluence 6.2.x :  https://confluence.atlassian.com/conf62/supported-platforms-902075330.html
• Supported platform for confluence 7.9.x : https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/supported-platforms-207488198.html

[Michael Lightfoot]

Thanks Vishwas.  This was (except for the multiple upgrades) my original draft high level plan, but the missing bit was where to get the old (6.2.3) version from and the other documentation for the now out of support version.

I have also now checked that I can easily install PostgreSQL 9.5 on CentOS 8 (it is available in the standard repositories thankfully).

As these are VMs I can also take snapshots at various points in the exercise.

If anyone has further hints it would also be appreciated as this will not be a straightforward click and go exercise.

Cheers all

Michael Lightfoot

Delivery Engineer

Sliced Tech

[Michael Lightfoot]

Just as an added complexity, we have 2.6GBytes of attachments which suggests I have to use the second method of migrating Confluence to a new server.

I assume I need to copy these attachments across to the new server before doing any upgrades, or can attachments be added in at any point?

Cheers

Michael Lightfoot

[vishwas]

@Michael Lightfoot 

It's better if you can copy the attachments to new server and start the upgrades.

But you can add them at any point, the mapping will be done !!

Cheers,

Vishwas