This page last changed on Apr 09, 2008 by smaddox.
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.
  • Mac OS X systems. For other operating systems please refer to the Confluence Installation Guide.
  • Installation via a zipped download file. For a simpler installation procedure, please consider the Confluence Installer.

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.

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.
  4. We recommend that you run Software Update to ensure that your operating system is up to date.

2. Install the JDK (Java Development Kit)

About Java

Confluence needs JDK 1.4 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 1.4 or 1.5 are fine for now.
  • Advance notice: Java 1.4 will be deprecated in a future release. Confluence 2.8 will be the last version that supports Java 1.4.
  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. Download and Unzip the Confluence Installation File

  1. If you have not downloaded Confluence already, download the Standalone zip file.
  2. Find the downloaded file in the Finder. Double-click on the file to extract it to a directory called confluence-2.7.0-std or something similar.
  3. Move this folder to wherever you want to keep your Confluence installation — for example, under your user's home folder.
    • Ensure that there are no spaces in the folder name, or in the names of any of its parent folders.
    • This folder that includes the Confluence application is called the Confluence Installation directory.
  4. Create a folder named confluence-data. Create this folder in the Finder, using the 'New Folder' command in the 'File' menu.
    • You can create this folder anywhere, e.g. in your home folder, but not inside the Confluence Installation directory directory.
    • Ensure that there are no spaces in the folder name, or in the names of any of its parent folders.
    • This folder is called the Confluence Home directory.
  5. Set up an environment variable which tells Confluence where your Java Virtual Machine is installed.
    • Inside the Confluence Installation directory, find the bin/setenv.sh file.
    • Open the setenv.sh file with TextEdit.
    • Add the following line as the first line of the file:
      export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/Home

4. 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

Installation directory: c:\confluence\confluence-2.7.0-std
Home directory: c:\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 such as Textedit.
  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. Change the Confluence Home directory to the Confluence Home directory you have just created:
    • Place the cursor after the '=' sign.
    • Find the the Confluence Home directory which you created earlier and drag it to TextEdit. This will insert the full path of the folder into the file.
    • Make sure that you did delete the leading '#' character, and that the path after the '=' sign starts with a '/' character. The line should now look something like this:
      confluence.home=/Users/jsmith/confluence-data

5. 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.

6. Start Confluence

  1. Go to your Confluence Installation directory (created when you unzipped Confluence — see above).
  2. Open the bin folder and run OS X - Run Confluence In Background.
  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 5 above.

7. 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 Apr 10, 2008 20:47