This page last changed on Jul 29, 2008 by jlargman.
These instructions apply to:
  • The Standalone edition of Confluence. The Standalone edition includes Apache Tomcat as the standalone application server. If you want to install an EAR/WAR edition for deployment on your own existing application server, please refer to the Confluence Installation Guide.
  • Unix, Linux or Solaris systems. If you are installing Confluence on a Windows or Mac OS X system, please refer to Installing Confluence Standalone.

Also, please check the version of Confluence which you are installing. Refer to the documentation home page to verify the latest Confluence version and to find documentation for older versions.

Hint: If you are evaluating Confluence on Unix or you are unsure which version to install, this is the one for you. Just follow the instructions below.

On this page:

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1. Before you Start

Please check the following points:

  1. Make sure that your system meets the minimum requirements to run Confluence:
    • If you are installing Confluence for evaluation purposes, it should be pretty easy. You will need a web browser — we recommend Firefox, or Internet Explorer 6 or later.
    • For production installations, please read the detailed system requirements.
  2. Have your Confluence license key ready. You can obtain a trial, free or commercial license now, or retrieve your existing license key.
  3. You must be able to use a command prompt and install Java to continue. If not, please contact your system administrator to assist you or consider the Hosted online evaluation option.

2. Install the JDK (Java Development Kit)

Confluence requires Java 5 (JDK 1.5) or later

Confluence needs JDK 1.5 or newer to be installed on your computer.

  • A JRE (Java Runtime Environment) is not enough.
  • JDK 6 is the preferred platform, because it is faster and more reliable.
  • JDK 1.5 is fine.
  • JDK 1.4 is not supported in Confluence 2.9 or later.
  1. If you are not sure whether you have JDK installed correctly, please confirm by doing the following:
    • Open a command prompt.
      • On Windows: Open your 'Start' menu and select 'Run', then type cmd and click 'OK'.
    • Type the following in the command prompt and then press Enter:
      • On Windows: echo %JAVA_HOME%
      • On Unix: echo $JAVA_HOME
    • View the result:
      • If a line is displayed such as C:\Progra~1\Java\jdk1.5.0_06, please check that the letters just before the final numbers are 'jdk'. If you see those letters, the JDK is installed.
      • If nothing is displayed, or you do not see 'jdk' plus some numbers, the JDK is not installed.
  2. If you have installed a non-Sun JDK, you need to install the Sun JSSE package now.
  3. If you need to install the JDK, follow these instructions:
    • Go to the Java Sun download page.
    • Download the version entitled 'JDK 6 Update XX', where 'XX' stands for some number. (Sun will provide the latest version on that page.)
    • When the download has finished, run the Java installer. At one point, you will be asked to choose a directory to install to. Copy or write this directory down for use later.
  4. On Windows: Please follow these instructions to set your JAVA_HOME environment variable to the directory you where you have just installed the JDK. By default, this directory is under C:\Program Files\Java.

3. Install X11 Dependencies

On Unix-based operating systems, the Java runtime makes use of certain parts of the platform's native X11 graphics libraries. The X Server does not have to be running, but the libraries must be available on the server. Confluence will run on a server that does not have Xlib installed, but parts of the application that manipulate graphics: PDF exports, image thumbnailing, the image gallery macro, CAPTCHA, and the resizing of profile pictures, will fail.

Mac OS X
You do not need to install X11 on Mac OS X, as it has its own graphics libraries.

If X11 is not present, you may see any of the following errors

  • "This Confluence installation can not generate thumbnails: no image support in Java runtime"
  • "Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: /usr/local/j2sdk1.4.2_09/jre/lib/i386/libawt.so: libXp.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory" when exporting a PDF
  • "NoClassDefFoundError" when uploading a profile picture
If This Doesn't Help
If you have X11 installed and thumbnailing still does not work, please ensure that you are running Java in headless mode — see the FAQ entitled Fix 'Error using thumbnails - No image support in Java runtime'.

Specific Installation Instructions

Fedora Core

On Fedora Core, you will need to install the xorg-x11-deprecated-libs package. (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=130239)

Fedora Core 6, RHEL 5
  • libXp
  • libXp-devel (if you wish to compile against this library)
Debian Linux

On Debian, you will need to instll the following packages (CONF-6411):

apt-get install libx11-6 libx11-dev libxt6 libxt6-dbg libxext6 libxtst-dev libxtst6 xlibs-dbg xlibs-dev

You'll only need the xlibs-dbg package if you're running an older version of Debian (3.0). It's a dummy package for smoothing the transition to a new set of graphics libraries, so if you can't locate it, you most likely don't need it.

Gentoo Linux

emerge libICE libSM libX11 libXext libXp libXt libXtst

Solaris 10

Please refer to the following forum for more information.

Ubuntu

Execute the following:

> sudo apt-get install libx11-6 libx11-dev libxt6 libxt6-dbg libxext6 libxtst-dev libxtst6 xlibs-dbg xlibs-dev

Note: 'sudo' enables you to be superuser for one operation. You will need to supply your user password.

4. Download the Confluence Installation File

  1. If you have not downloaded Confluence already, download the Standalone TAR.
  2. Solaris users, please check your unzip program: you must use GNU Tar, not Solaris Tar. Linux or Unix users can use any unzip program to unzip Confluence.
  3. Use your unzip program to unzip the installation file to a directory such as /home/jsmith/confluence-2.7.0-std/.
    • Do not use spaces in your directory path.

The directory into which you unzipped the Confluence installation is called the Confluence Installation directory. Next you will define the Confluence Home directory.

5. Define your Confluence Home Directory

Now you need to define the Confluence Home directory. This is where Confluence will store its configuration information, indexes and attachments.

Examples of Installation and Home Directories

We suggest using different paths for your installation and home directories. This will facilitate upgrades.
Installation directory: /usr/local/confluence-2.7.0-std/
Home directory: /usr/local/confluence-data/

  1. Open your Confluence Installation directory (created when you unzipped Confluence — see above).
  2. Under the Installation directory, find this file: \confluence\WEB-INF\classes\confluence-init.properties
  3. Open the confluence-init.properties file in a text editor.
  4. Scroll to the bottom and find this line:
    # confluence.home=c:/confluence/data

  5. Remove the '#' and the space at the beginning of this line, so that Confluence no longer regards the line as a comment. The line should now begin with confluence.home
  6. If you decide to change the Confluence Home directory from the default, use an absolute path rather than a symbolic link to specify the path and file name. For example:
    confluence.home=/home/jsmith/confluence-data/

6. Check the Ports

If you have another application running on your machine which is using the same ports that Confluence uses by default, you may need to change the port which Confluence will use. For example, if you have a Standalone installation of JIRA running on this machine, JIRA might be already using the port which Confluence requests by default.

By default, Confluence listens on port '8080'. If this port is already in use in your installation, follow these instructions to change the ports:

  • To change the ports for Confluence Standalone, open the file conf/server.xml under your Confluence Installation directory. The first four lines of the file look like this:

    Default conf/server.xml
    <Server port="8005" shutdown="SHUTDOWN" debug="0">
        <Service name="Tomcat-Standalone">
            <Connector className="org.apache.coyote.tomcat4.CoyoteConnector" port="8080" minProcessors="5" maxProcessors="75"
                enableLookups="true" redirectPort="8443" acceptCount="10" debug="0" connectionTimeout="20000" useURIValidationHack="false"/>
            ...

    You need to modify both the server port (default is 8005) and the connector port (default is 8080) to ports that are free on your machine.
    Hint: You can use netstat to identify free ports on your machine. See more information on using netstat on Windows or on Linux.

    For example, here are the first four lines of a modified server.xml file, using ports '8015' and '8090':

    Modified conf/server.xml using ports 8015 and 8090
    <Server port="8015" shutdown="SHUTDOWN" debug="0">
        <Service name="Tomcat-Standalone">
            <Connector className="org.apache.coyote.tomcat4.CoyoteConnector" port="8090" minProcessors="5" maxProcessors="75"
                enableLookups="true" redirectPort="8443" acceptCount="10" debug="0" connectionTimeout="20000" useURIValidationHack="false"/>
            ...

    To access Confluence in this configuration, point your web browser to http://localhost:8090/.

You will find more information on this page.

7. Select an External Database

This step is optional for evaluation instances of Confluence. It is mandatory for a production instance.

Select one of the supported external databases and follow the corresponding database setup guide. You can learn more about migration from an existing installation or use of the evaluation database here. You will continue to use the Database Setup Guide during the Confluence Setup Wizard. (See step 9 below.)

8. Start Confluence

  1. Go to your Confluence Installation directory (created when you unzipped Confluence — see above).
  2. Under your Confluence Installation directory, open the bin directory and run the startup script: startup.sh.
  3. Once Confluence is running, open a web browser and visit http://localhost:8080/.
    Hint: If you changed the port earlier, use the port you specified in step 6 above.

9. Next Step is the Confluence Setup Wizard

The Confluence Setup Wizard should appear in your web browser, prompting you to enter your license key. Follow the instructions on the screens, and read more guidelines on the Confluence Setup Wizard.

If the web browser shows an error instead of the Setup Wizard, check the Troubleshooting section.

RELATED TOPICS

Change listen port for Confluence Standalone
Adding SSL on Confluence 2.1.5a and earlier
Confluence Setup Guide
Configuration Guide
Documentation Home

Document generated by Confluence on Aug 07, 2008 19:05