Upgrading Confluence Data Center
This page contains instructions for upgrading an existing Confluence cluster.
If you are not running Confluence in a cluster, follow the instructions in Upgrading Confluence.
If you're running Confluence in a cluster in AWS, follow the instructions in Running Confluence Data Center in AWS.
If you are upgrading to the next bug fix update (for example, 7.9.0 to 7.9.3), you can do so with no downtime. Follow the instructions in Upgrade Confluence without downtime.
In this guide we'll use the following terminology:
- Installation directory – The directory where you installed Confluence.
- Local home directory – The home or data directory stored locally on each cluster node (if Confluence is not running in a cluster, this is simply known as the home directory).
- Shared home directory – The directory you created that is accessible to all nodes in the cluster via the same path.
Currently using Confluence Server? Learn more about the benefits of Confluence Data Center.
On this page:
1. Back up
We strongly recommend that you backup your Confluence home and install directories and your database before proceeding.
More information on specific files and directories to backup can be found in Upgrading Confluence.
2. Download Confluence
Download the appropriate file for your operating system from https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/download
3. Stop the cluster
You must stop all the nodes in the cluster before upgrading.
We recommend configuring your load balancer to redirect traffic away from Confluence until the upgrade is complete on all nodes.
4. Upgrade the first node
To upgrade the first node:
- Extract (unzip) the files to a directory (this will be your new installation directory, and must be different to your existing installation directory)
- Go to the file
<Installation-Directory>\confluence\WEB-INF\classes\confluence-init.properties, and update the lineconfluence.hometo point to the existing local home directory on that node. - If your deployment uses a MySQL database, copy the jdbc driver jar file from your existing Confluence installation directory to
confluence/WEB-INF/libin your new installation directory.
The jdbc driver will be located in either the<Install-Directory>/common/libor<Installation-Directory>/confluence/WEB-INF/libdirectories. See Database Setup For MySQL for more details. - If you run Confluence as a service:
- On Windows, delete the existing service then re-install the service by running
<install-directory>/bin/service.bat. - On Linux, update the service to point to the new installation directory (or use symbolic links to do this).
- On Windows, delete the existing service then re-install the service by running
Copy any other immediately required customizations from the old version to the new one (for example if you are not running Confluence on the default ports or if you manage users externally, you'll need to update / copy the relevant files - find out more in Upgrading Confluence Manually).
If you configured Confluence to run as a Windows or Linux service, don't forget to update its service configuration as well. For related information, see Start Confluence Automatically on Windows as a Service or Run Confluence as a systemd service on linux.
- Start Confluence, and confirm that you can log in and view pages before continuing to the next
step.
You should now stop Confluence, and reapply any additional customizations from the old version to the new version, before upgrading the remaining nodes.
5. Upgrade Synchrony (optional)
If you're running your own Synchrony cluster, you should:
- Grab the new
synchrony-standalone.jarfrom the<local-home>directory on your upgraded Confluence node. - Copy the new
synchrony-standalone.jarto each of your Synchrony nodes, and start Synchrony as normal.
6. Copy Confluence to remaining nodes
The next step is to replicate your upgraded Confluence directories to other nodes in the cluster.
- Copy the installation directory and local home directory from the first node to the next node.
- If the path to the local home directory is different on this node, edit the
confluence-init.propertiesto point to the correct location. - Start Confluence, and and confirm that you can log in and view pages on this node.
Stop Confluence on this node, then repeat this process for each remaining node.
7. Start Confluence and check cluster connectivity
Once all nodes have been upgraded you can start Confluence Data Center on each node, one at a time (starting up multiple nodes simultaneously can lead to serious failures).
The Cluster monitoring console (Administration 
> General Configuration > Clustering) includes information about the active cluster nodes. When the cluster is running properly, you should be able to see the details of each node.