Update base URL not working
Asked by Dipesh Ramesh:

Hello,

I have confluence hosted locally

currently the server base urls are:

localhost:8080 \& http://machinename:8090

However I would like to change this to:

<http://conf.usa.mycompanyname.com>

When I click on update base url link and edit it to: <http://conf.usa.mycompanyname.com> then I cannot access confluence with new url (however I can access using localhost:8080)

I am following this document:

<https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/configuring-the-server-base-url-148592.html>

And it says I have to make change to `server.xml file. `

Could someone advice if this is necessary? and will work?


Answers:
author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: What error message do you get in the browser?

comments: author: Dipesh Ramesh
body: Hi Nic,

I don't get any error when updating my base URL. But when I try accessing using new URL the web-page says 'This page can't be displayed, Make sure the web address [http://conf.usa.mycompanyname.com](http://conf.usa.mycompanyname.com/) is correct'


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: How have you set up the server in your DNS servers?

Could you try (on your machine), "nslookup conf.usa.mycompanyname.com"?


author: Dipesh Ramesh
body: DNS entry will be added letter on.

However, currently when I update base url to [http://conf.usa.mycompanyname.com](http://conf.usa.mycompanyname.com/), then I cannot access confluence using new URL.

Is this not suppose to work locally without changing any DNS settings?


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: If you don't know what the address leads to (because you have no DNS entry for it), then there's no way the computer will be able to find it.

It will work locally when you use the local address (localhost)

You could spike the hosts file with a hard-wired address if you want, but that will still only work for that one machine, and you absolutely want to remove it when you've got DNS in place.


author: P_D_ Foerster
body: Hi Dipesh,

do you make use of a reverse proxy when trying to access your confluence via the new base URL? If so, you have to add the proxy attributes mentioned in the document above to your Tomcat's connector so that Tomcat knows the application is running behind a proxy.

comments: author: Dipesh Ramesh
body: Hi Patrice,

In confluence I have updated base url to:

I have changed my server.xml file as mentioned [http://conf.usa.mycompanyname.com](http://conf.usa.mycompanyname.com/):8090

I tried changing path and proxy settings and now the confleunce don't work even with localhost (i have backup web.xml )

This is what my xml file looks like:

\<Connector port="8090" connectionTimeout="20000" redirectPort="8443" maxThreads="48" minSpareThreads="10" enableLookups="false" acceptCount="10" debug="0" URIEncoding="UTF-8"protocol="org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11NioProtocol"/ proxyName="[conf.usa.mycompanyname.com](http://conf.usa.mycompanyname.com/)" proxyPort="8090" scheme="http"\>

\<Engine name="Standalone" defaultHost="localhost" debug="0"\>\<Host name="localhost" debug="0" appBase="webapps" unpackWARs="true" autoDeploy="false" startStopThreads="4"\>\<Context path="/confluence" docBase="../confluence" debug="0" reloadable="false" useHttpOnly="true"\>

\<Manager pathname=""/\>\<Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.StuckThreadDetectionValve" threshold="60"/\>\</Context\>\<Context path="${confluence.context.path}/synchrony-proxy" docBase="../synchrony-proxy" debug="0" reloadable="false" useHttpOnly="true"\>\<Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.StuckThreadDetectionValve" threshold="60"/\>\</Context\>\</Host\>\</Engine\>

I have edited this part: proxyName="[conf.usa.mycompanyname.com](http://conf.usa.mycompanyname.com/)" proxyPort="8090" scheme="http" and \<Context path="/confluence" docBase="../confluence" debug="0" reloadable="false" useHttpOnly="true"\>


author: P_D_ Foerster
body: Hi Dipesh,

as far as I can see you don't use a context path in your URL but /confluence is configured. At first please add /confluence to your base URL and check if you can access your Confluence now. Maybe you have to update some settings on your proxy as well.

If you don't want to use a context path please follow [How to change the Confluence context path.](https://confluence.atlassian.com/confkb/how-to-change-the-confluence-context-path-707985922.html "How to change the Confluence context path")I suggest you try to access Confluence locally (without going over proxy) first and check if you can access Confluence. Next remove the context path as described in the article mentioned. Then update your base URL and server.xml (because of proxy settings). Of course also check the configuration in your proxy.


author: Dipesh Ramesh
body: Hi Patrick,

If I do /confluence on my web-browser it does not work

If I remove /confluence from my server.xml file then it work (inc localhost) but the base URL dont work (<http://conf.usa.mycompanyname.com>)

\<Context path="" docBase="../confluence" debug="0" reloadable="false" useHttpOnly="true"\>

My requirement is to have proxy as people would like to access this as <http://conf.usa.mycompanyname.com>

any other suggestion do let me know


Tags: base-url

confluence-server

server