Confluence Startup Problem w/o Error
Asked by Scott Stricklin:

I have a fresh install of Confluence 4.0.3 in order to do some testing. I followed the installation instructions, and am running it as a service. It appears to start, but I cannot access Confluence through a web browser. Here's the log:

Apr 8, 2014 8:29:30 AM org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.SetPropertiesRule begin

WARNING: \[SetPropertiesRule\]{Server} Setting property 'debug' to '0' did not find a matching property.

Apr 8, 2014 8:29:30 AM org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.SetPropertiesRule begin

WARNING: \[SetPropertiesRule\]{Server/Service/Engine} Setting property 'debug' to '0' did not find a matching property.

Apr 8, 2014 8:29:30 AM org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.SetPropertiesRule begin

WARNING: \[SetPropertiesRule\]{Server/Service/Engine/Host} Setting property 'debug' to '0' did not find a matching property.

Apr 8, 2014 8:29:30 AM org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.SetPropertiesRule begin

WARNING: \[SetPropertiesRule\]{Server/Service/Engine/Host/Context} Setting property 'debug' to '0' did not find a matching pro

perty.

Apr 8, 2014 8:29:30 AM org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol init

INFO: Initializing Coyote HTTP/1.1 on http-9011

Apr 8, 2014 8:29:30 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina load

INFO: Initialization processed in 353 ms

Apr 8, 2014 8:29:30 AM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService start

INFO: Starting service Tomcat-Standalone

Apr 8, 2014 8:29:30 AM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine start

INFO: Starting Servlet Engine: Apache Tomcat/6.0.32

2014-04-08 08:29:31,954 INFO \[main\] \[com.atlassian.confluence.lifecycle\] contextInitialized Starting Confluence 4.0.3 (build

#3056)

Apr 8, 2014 8:29:45 AM org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol start

INFO: Starting Coyote HTTP/1.1 on http-9011

Apr 8, 2014 8:29:45 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina start

INFO: Server startup in 14878 ms


Answers:
author: Andris Grinbergs
body: Probably you shold disable firewall and/or SElinux.


author: Scott Stricklin
body: Thanks for the help. Showing that Confluence was up but not accessible through the browser got the server firewall settings a second look, and that was the culprit.

comments: author: Andris Grinbergs
body: That's great, You may want to mark this question as answered.


author: Scott Stricklin
body: It doesn't look like the problem is Confluence.

For security reasons I'm going through a jump server to a VM in a lab. I'll work with the folks that run the lab to see if there's something going on with the port or firewall. I'll let you know what I find out.


author: Scott Stricklin
body: Server.xml

\<Server port="9012" shutdown="SHUTDOWN" debug="0"\>

\<Service name="Tomcat-Standalone"\>

\<Connector className="org.apache.coyote.tomcat4.CoyoteConnector" port="9011" minProcessors="5"

maxProcessors="75"

enableLookups="false" redirectPort="8443" acceptCount="10" debug="0" connectionTimeout="20000"

useURIValidationHack="false" URIEncoding="UTF-8"/\>

comments: author: Andris Grinbergs
body: Scott have you tried my last suggestion?

WGET confirmed that confluence is working properly. And that web interface can be accessed from server itself. You just need to fix networking issue.


author: ryan goodwin
body: Solid, thanks. So tomcat is running port 9012, confluence is running on 9011. If the machine confluence is installed on has a browser, what happens when you access localhost:9011?

If not, what url are you using to access from client machine?


author: ryan goodwin
body: I also just noticed, the logs you're looking in are the tomcat logs. Please go to the data directory and find the .../logs/atlassian-confluence.log. These are the confluence application logs. The tomcat logs you're looking in are fine for seeing that tomcat is started, but once tomcat bootstraps confluence, all important application related logging goes to the logs i just mentioned.


author: Scott Stricklin
body: Ryan, I posted those above. Here it is again. Seems like Confluence is ready:

2014-04-09 07:57:55,013 INFO \[Thread-6\] \[com.atlassian.confluence.lifecycle\] contextDestroyed Stopping Confluence

2014-04-09 07:57:55,032 INFO \[Thread-6\] \[atlassian.plugin.manager.DefaultPluginManager\] shutdown Shutting down the plugin system

2014-04-09 07:58:49,851 INFO \[main\] \[com.atlassian.confluence.lifecycle\] contextInitialized Starting Confluence 4.0.3 (build #3056)

2014-04-09 07:58:54,824 INFO \[main\] \[atlassian.plugin.manager.DefaultPluginManager\] init Initialising the plugin system

2014-04-09 07:59:03,393 INFO \[main\] \[atlassian.plugin.manager.DefaultPluginManager\] init Plugin system started in 0:00:08.567

2014-04-09 07:59:06,337 INFO \[main\] \[com.atlassian.confluence.lifecycle\] init Confluence is ready to serve

comments: author: ryan goodwin
body: Ok if that is the atlassian-confluence.log then you have a valid startup and Confluence is waiting for you to access via a browser to finish the setup. I just ran through a test new install and this is what is reported in the atl-conf.log:

```
2014-04-09 09:32:46,012 INFO [main] [com.atlassian.confluence.lifecycle] contextInitialized Starting Confluence 5.4.4 [build 4733 based on commit hash f235dd088df5682b0560ab6fc66ed22c9124c0be]2014-04-09 09:32:47,529 INFO [main] [atlassian.plugin.manager.DefaultPluginManager] init Initialising the plugin system2014-04-09 09:32:50,874 INFO [main] [atlassian.plugin.manager.DefaultPluginManager] init Plugin system started in 0:00:03.3442014-04-09 09:32:51,411 INFO [main] [com.atlassian.confluence.lifecycle] init Confluence is ready to serve
```

Once you can access confluence via the browser, you will be able to move forward with the db configuration etc.

Are you accessing with a browser on the same machine that confluence is installed on?

Can you copy/paste your server.xml here? There is no information in it that will compromise your instance (as long as this is a default config file that you've only changed the ports on).


author: Scott Stricklin
body: Ryan, I changed the port in server.xml to 9011 and 9012.

Here's what the wget reports:

2014-04-09 10:20:08-- <http://localhost:9011/>

Resolving localhost... ::1, 127.0.0.1

Connecting to localhost\|::1\|:9011... connected.

HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Moved Temporarily

Location: <http://localhost:9011/bootstrap/selectsetupstep.action>\[following\]

--2014-04-09 10:20:09-- <http://localhost:9011/bootstrap/selectsetupstep.action>

Reusing existing connection to localhost:9011.

HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Moved Temporarily

Location: <http://localhost:9011/setup/setuplicense.action;jsessionid=47312B5C6211E58D0145EC01F0045559>\[following\]

--2014-04-09 10:20:09-- <http://localhost:9011/setup/setuplicense.action;jsessionid=47312B5C6211E58D0145EC01F0045559>

Reusing existing connection to localhost:9011.

HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK

Length: unspecified \[text/html\]

Saving to: ?index.html?

\[ \<=\> \] 14,715 --.-K/s in 0s

2014-04-09 10:20:10 (146 MB/s) - ?index.html?

comments: author: ryan goodwin
body: Can you paste your server.xml here? Stating you changed the port in the server.xml to 9011 and 9012 is confusing. There are 2 important ports configured in the server.xml. One is for tomcat, the other is for confluence. From the log snippet you pasted in your first comment,

INFO: Starting Coyote HTTP/1.1 on http-9011  
This means Tomcat is starting on port 9011. If the other port in your server.xml file under the first Connector element is set to 9012, then hit that port in your browser.  
If you have a browser on the localhost, open it and use <http://localhost:9012>. If you don't, then use a client machine and access via \<ip\>:9012 or \<server-name\>:9012  
If you made no other changes to the configuration other than the ports, you would be able to access there - barring any network interference like firewalls, antivirus, etc that restrict port access.


author: Andris Grinbergs
body: This means that confluence is up and running and server itself can access it. But you have some problems accessing it from your workstation.

Please review firewall config of server (ensure you have TCP port 9011 open) or disable firewall temporary.

You may also try to create a putty session to your server and create SSH tunnel throug it to (localhost TCP port 9011). You will then be able to browse confluence from your workstation as from server.


author: Scott Stricklin
body: Andris, we don't have telnet. I believe for security reasons. Ryan, the log doesn't have that line:

2014-04-09 07:57:55,013 INFO \[Thread-6\] \[com.atlassian.confluence.lifecycle\] contextDestroyed Stopping Confluence

2014-04-09 07:57:55,032 INFO \[Thread-6\] \[atlassian.plugin.manager.DefaultPluginManager\] shutdown Shutting down the plugin system

2014-04-09 07:58:49,851 INFO \[main\] \[com.atlassian.confluence.lifecycle\] contextInitialized Starting Confluence 4.0.3 (build #3056)

2014-04-09 07:58:54,824 INFO \[main\] \[atlassian.plugin.manager.DefaultPluginManager\] init Initialising the plugin system

2014-04-09 07:59:03,393 INFO \[main\] \[atlassian.plugin.manager.DefaultPluginManager\] init Plugin system started in 0:00:08.567

2014-04-09 07:59:06,337 INFO \[main\] \[com.atlassian.confluence.lifecycle\] init Confluence is ready to serve

comments: author: Andris Grinbergs
body: You can try

wget [](http://localhost:9011/)<http://localhost:9011/>

You should really try to open URL somehow from server itself to exclude proxy server issues and alike.


author: ryan goodwin
body: What port is confluence configured to run on in the conf/server.xml? Or are you running the war configuration?

Should see this in the config file if you're running standalone:

```
&lt;Server port="8000" shutdown="SHUTDOWN" debug="0"&gt;    &lt;Service name="Tomcat-Standalone"&gt;        &lt;Connector className="org.apache.coyote.tomcat4.CoyoteConnector" port="8090" minProcessors="5"                   maxProcessors="75"                   enableLookups="false" redirectPort="8443" acceptCount="10" debug="0" connectionTimeout="20000"                   useURIValidationHack="false" URIEncoding="UTF-8"/&gt;
```

You're looking for the port= in the Connector element.


author: ryan goodwin
body: Confluence default port is 8090, but you can check what port it is configured on by checking the file at  
\<confluence-install\>/conf/server.xml

Check the port listed there and access at http://localhost:\<port\>

Also, if you view the atlassian-confluence.log, you'll see something like this during the startup:

--------------------------

Build Information

--------------------------

baseUrl = [](http://localhost:8090)<http://localhost:8090>

That baseUrl is where you will find confluence waiting for you :)


author: Scott Stricklin
body: Put in a rule in iptables rather than turning the firewall off (no bueno), and disabled selinux. No improvement. No errors in logs. Server listening to port. Confluence seems ready, but nothing comes up in the browser. Is there another way to test it that might lend some information?

comments: author: Andris Grinbergs
body: Please check if telent opens connection, run from server:

telnet localhost 9011

If it opens, try opening with web browser from server (for example text based browser lynx).


author: Scott Stricklin
body: getenforce: "Enforcing"

messages has no errors

The only changes I made to the confluence XML file was to change the ports.

Netstat shows:

tcp 0 0 \*:9011 \*:\* LISTEN 20296/java

tcp 0 0 localhost:9012 \*:\* LISTEN 20296/java

comments: author: Andris Grinbergs
body: Open file /etc/selinux/configchange SELINUX parameter to disabledTurn off firewall.restart linuxstart confluence, wait few minutes, open <http://server-ip-address:9011/>


author: Scott Stricklin
body: Ah, not home, but the "data" directory. Here is the content of the atlassian-confluence.log

2014-04-08 07:49:11,618 INFO \[main\] \[com.atlassian.confluence.lifecycle\] contextInitialized Starting Confluence 4.0.3 (build #

3056)

2014-04-08 07:49:15,099 INFO \[main\] \[atlassian.plugin.manager.DefaultPluginManager\] init Initialising the plugin system

2014-04-08 07:49:23,493 INFO \[main\] \[atlassian.plugin.manager.DefaultPluginManager\] init Plugin system started in 0:00:08.392

2014-04-08 07:49:25,644 INFO \[main\] \[com.atlassian.confluence.lifecycle\] init Confluence is ready to serve

2014-04-08 07:55:49,510 INFO \[main\] \[com.atlassian.confluence.lifecycle\] contextDestroyed Stopping Confluence

2014-04-08 07:55:49,526 INFO \[main\] \[atlassian.plugin.manager.DefaultPluginManager\] shutdown Shutting down the plugin system

2014-04-08 07:56:06,931 INFO \[main\] \[com.atlassian.confluence.lifecycle\] contextInitialized Starting Confluence 4.0.3 (build #

3056)

2014-04-08 07:56:10,327 INFO \[main\] \[atlassian.plugin.manager.DefaultPluginManager\] init Initialising the plugin system

2014-04-08 07:56:19,015 INFO \[main\] \[atlassian.plugin.manager.DefaultPluginManager\] init Plugin system started in 0:00:08.686

2014-04-08 07:56:21,018 INFO \[main\] \[com.atlassian.confluence.lifecycle\] init Confluence is ready to serve

2014-04-08 08:05:34,836 INFO \[main\] \[com.atlassian.confluence.lifecycle\] contextInitialized Starting Confluence 4.0.3 (build #

3056)

2014-04-08 08:05:38,288 INFO \[main\] \[atlassian.plugin.manager.DefaultPluginManager\] init Initialising the plugin system

2014-04-08 08:05:47,055 INFO \[main\] \[atlassian.plugin.manager.DefaultPluginManager\] init Plugin system started in 0:00:08.765

2014-04-08 08:05:49,041 INFO \[main\] \[com.atlassian.confluence.lifecycle\] init Confluence is ready to serve

2014-04-08 08:29:10,936 INFO \[main\] \[com.atlassian.confluence.lifecycle\] contextDestroyed Stopping Confluence

2014-04-08 08:29:10,950 INFO \[main\] \[atlassian.plugin.manager.DefaultPluginManager\] shutdown Shutting down the plugin system

2014-04-08 08:29:31,954 INFO \[main\] \[com.atlassian.confluence.lifecycle\] contextInitialized Starting Confluence 4.0.3 (build #

3056)

2014-04-08 08:29:35,232 INFO \[main\] \[atlassian.plugin.manager.DefaultPluginManager\] init Initialising the plugin system

2014-04-08 08:29:43,270 INFO \[main\] \[atlassian.plugin.manager.DefaultPluginManager\] init Plugin system started in 0:00:08.036

2014-04-08 08:29:45,125 INFO \[main\] \[com.atlassian.confluence.lifecycle\] init Confluence is ready to serve

comments: author: Andris Grinbergs
body: What is output of "getenforce" command?

Please check syslog(/var/log/messages or /var/log/syslog) for any errors/warnings.

What changes (if any) you made to server.xml file?

What is output of "netstat -ap\|grep -i list \|grep java" command when confluence is started?


author: Scott Stricklin
body: Standalone. I followed these instructions, launching the install as root.

<https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/CONF40/Installing+Confluence+on+Linux>

comments: author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: There really should be application logs.

Where did you put "confluence home"? There will be a directory under that called "logs" with the application logs in it. Those will tell you more, although they might not be called exactly what we're expecting.


author: Scott Stricklin
body: There is no log file by that name.

comments: author: Andris Grinbergs
body: Do you install standalone version? It somehow feels like application server(tomcat) starts, but don't find confluence application anywhere...


author: Scott Stricklin
body: Here's the process:

505 20296 1 0 08:29 ? 00:00:16 /opt/atlassian/confluence/jre//bin/java -Djava.util.logging.config.file=/opt/atlassian/confluence/conf/logging.properties -Xms256m -Xmx512m -XX:MaxPermSize=256m -Djava.awt.headless=true -Djava.util.logging.manager=org.apache.juli.ClassLoaderLogManager -Djava.endorsed.dirs=/opt/atlassian/confluence/endorsed -classpath /opt/atlassian/confluence/bin/bootstrap.jar -Dcatalina.base=/opt/atlassian/confluence -Dcatalina.home=/opt/atlassian/confluence -Djava.io.tmpdir=/opt/atlassian/confluence/temp org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap start

comments: author: Andris Grinbergs
body: Please check if you have errors in other LOG file - \[confluence home\]\\logs\\atlassian-confluence.log


author: Scott Stricklin
body: Yes. It doesn't appear to be listening to either.

comments: author: Andris Grinbergs
body: Is Java process running?


author: Scott Stricklin
body: The installation instructions say that this should appear in the logs when it's ready to be accessed through a web browser. But they don't say what to do if it doesn't show up at all.

|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| `*******************************************************` ` ``... You can now access Confluence through your web browser.` `*******************************************************` |

comments: author: Andris Grinbergs
body: Have you tried accessing it on 8080 or 9011 port?


Tags: confluence-administration