would like to migrate from Confluence 3.2.1_01 to latest (currently Confluence 4.3.1)

[manoj chavda]

Would like to migrate our Confluence install from v3.2.1_01 to latest (currently v4.3.1).

I created a v4 server (trial license).

I exported 1 space (from v3), edited the buildNumber field in the exportDescriptor.properties file in the export and imported into v4. Import worked, but markup displayed as wiki-markup.

My questions are

1. How can I fix the markup? I've run the wikiToXhtmlMigrationUpgradeTask task but this had no effect

2. How should I approach the migration to v4? If possible, I would rather install a clean v4 instance, rather than upgrading the v3 instance

regards

[hsuhailah · Accepted solution]

1. How can I fix the markup? I've run the wikiToXhtmlMigrationUpgradeTask task but this had no effect

It's hard to tell if this can actually be fixed because the content never really went through an upgrade process where it should be converted to xhtml. I'm guessing that is why it stays as an "unmigrated wiki-markup".

2. How should I approach the migration to v4? If possible, I would rather install a clean v4 instance, rather than upgrading the v3 instance

An in-place database upgrade would be the solution however this will require some stages of task due to the huge difference in the database schema from Confluence 3.2.1_01 to Confluence 4.3.1. To be honest, there is no an easy shortcut and xml backup restoration for an upgrade process is known to cause many issues again due to the huge difference in the database schema in a later Confluence version.

The stage of upgrading your instance would be:

3.2.1_01 > 3.5 > 4.3

If you encounter some issues along the way, we are here to help out.

First and foremost, always test out the upgrade task on a test server. You can clone your 3.2.1_01 for this purposes. This is what you'll need to do:

On the test server, you will need to copy over 3 things (ensure that the test server has the same environment/OS as the production server):

1. Copy of Confluence Production database dump/backup
2. Copy of Confluence Production installation folder
3. Copy of Confluence Production home folder. Confluence Home folder is defined in <Confluence install folder>/confluence/WEB-INF/classes/confluence-init.properties file.

After that, do the followings:

1. Create a new database name. Restore Confluence Production copy of database dump/backup into this newly created database.
2. Edit confluence.cfg.xml in the copy of Confluence Production home folder to point to the newly created database. Ensure that the database username and password are updated too if it differs from the Production server.
3. Go to /confluence-x.x.x-std/confluence/WEB-INF/classes in the copy of Confluence Production installation folder and edit confluence-init.properties to point to the new path of Confluence Production copy of home folder.
4. Start Confluence.

Once you have successfully clone your production instance and run in on the test server without any issue, you can proceed to do the upgrade to Confluence 3.5 following this documentation: https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Upgrading+Confluence+Manually. Do have a read and follow through the steps to ensure a successful upgrade. Also, take note of the mentioned pointers e.g. backing up and re-applying customization (if any).

Once this upgrade is successful, you may then proceed to upgrade it to Confluence 4.3.1.

NOTE: Please read these upgrade notes before conducting the upgrade task so you would have a better idea on the major changes that has been done on a later Confluence version:

• https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Confluence+3.5+Upgrade+Notes
• https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/CONF43/Confluence+4.3+Release+Notes

[MS]

We tidied up a database clone of the production server on a test machine then upgraded from 3.1.1 to 3.5 and then 4.2. Then exported our site as xml and imported it to a fresh new 4.3 production server. We did quite a bit of testing first, but I'm still ironing out a few bugs...