Migrating content from Confluence 3x to Confluence 4x

[Julie Allinson]

I want to migrate content from an installation of Confluence 3.1.2 into an installation of Confluence 4.3. This seems like a pretty big jump but we'd like to avoid upgrading the 'old' confluence. My question is whether it is worth trying the 'changing the version of a space backup' or is that just doomed to fail?

https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Changing+the+version+of+a+space+backup

[JamieA · Accepted solution]

That is doomed to fail. You can create a staging version of 3.1.2, do a space migration to the staging version, then upgrade the staging version to 4.3. Then if you have some other instance of 4.3 you can do a space migration to that.

I recently did this for 50-odd spaces... all automated, and worked fine.

[William Zanchet [Atlassian]]

Hi Julie,

I personally don't suggest to try the changing the version approach, because that can lead us to problems.
I would suggest to create a test instance with your data from 3.1.2 and then do the upgrade following this path 3.4.9 > 3.5.17 > 4.3

* Creating a test environment and import the XML Backup (the way that I personally do).

1. # Go to your production site, and go to _Browse > Confluence Admin > Backup & Restore_ and mark just the attachments option.
2. # Go to atlassian.com and download Confluence 3.1.2 ( I prefer to download the standalone version ).
3. # Extract the zip/tar.gz file of the latest version of Confluence on the place you choose. ( I highly suggest that you create a folder call: Confluence 3.1.2, and inside of this folder extract the install folder, and inside of the Confluence 3.1.2 folder create a folder call: Home ).
4. # Into the extracted folder, open the file confluence-init.properties, which is located at Confluence install directory\confluence\web-inf\classes and edit the line: confluence.home=/usr/local/confluence/home to point to the path where is your new home folder of your Confluence.
5. # Now start Confluence.
6. # Create a new database in your tool, e.g: MySQL, Postgres, MSSQL... I mean a clean one.
7. # Once that Confluence is configured/running go to _Browse > Confluence Admin > Backup & Restore_ and choose that XML backup that you've generated in your production.
8. # Now you'll have your clone up and running, with your data.

You don't have to worry about your database, with the full XML backup, Confluence will do the magic, I mean, populate the new database, make everything right. So, you don't need to do a clone of your database.

I hope this helps