Migrate Confluence without home directory
Asked by Miro Conzelmann:

Hello,

i have to migrate a Confluence Installation from a server to another server. Unfortunately the source server is not available anymore and I only did a mysqldump of the Confluence Installation.

Is it somehow possible to install the old Confluence Version and do a import of the mysqldump?

The sqldump's CONFVERSION table shows me, that the installed Confluence Version had the **Build 5638** . I assume, that Build 5638 refers to [5.6.3 Server](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/confluence-5-6-3-release-notes-664994920.html). Is that correct?

Is it afterwards possible to upgrade the Confluence Installation to a recent version (6.7.2).

Thanks in advance


Answers:
author: Shannon S
body: Hi Miro,

5638 refers to 5.6.5: [Confluence build information](https://developer.atlassian.com/server/confluence/confluence-build-information/)

What I recommend you do is the following:

1. Create a dummy MySQL database (follow [this process](https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/CONF56/Database+Setup+For+MySQL) to make the database)
2. Install Confluence 5.6.5. This version can be found from our [Download Archives](https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/download-archives)
3. During setup, connect to the dummy database.
4. Once setup successfully, stop Confluence.
5. In the confluence.cfg.xml file, [update the database parameters](https://confluence.atlassian.com/confkb/how-to-find-confluence-s-database-connection-parameters-779172320.html) to point to the old database. If your database is no longer hosted somewhere then you will want to restore it first using your MySQL administration tools.
6. Once updated, you can start Confluence again and it should connect to your old database to obtain the information from the lost instance.

After that is up and running, you can then proceed with [Upgrading Confluence](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/upgrading-confluence-4578.html).

Let us know if you have any questions.

Shannon


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: It's not going to be wonderfully healthy, but yes you can do it.

The build number you've got is wrong. I know they look like they might be related to the release number, but they're not. Confluence 6.8 server is on build 7701. The builds are done by CI servers which just number them sequentially. Humans select the build for a release.

Your Confluence is actually 5.6.5. Install that, using an empty database, and get it running - just as far as creating the demo site and checking you can log in and edit a page.

Then, stop it, amend the confluence.cfg file in \<confluence home\> to point to the database you restored from your database dump, and restart it. Do not touch anything and don't worry about the now broken dashboard, go to admin and re-index the system.

You should find all your spaces and pages are back, although you may well have to mess with the user stuff to get everyone back in, and you may be missing specialist customisations. I suspect you have lost all the attachments too, as these are usually stored on the file system, not in the database.


author: Minh Tran
body: Since confluence 5.10.0, the build number will be similar across confluence versions if there is not new upgrade task

The new marketplace build number is introduced to identify between versions for Atlassian marketplace. You can see that column from <https://developer.atlassian.com/server/confluence/confluence-build-information/>

However, that value is not stored inside a database. What you are only able to find the build number in the CONFVERSION table.

You can only find the Confluence version via REST api:

```
? curl https://xyz.com/rest/prototype/latest/buildInfo
{"versionNumber":"6.9.0-m52","buildDate":1522627200000,"buildTimestamp":"2018-04-02T23:56:24.435+0000","buildNumber":"7701","bambooBuildNumber":"259","revisionNumber":"9517ffcdeb32209bfdcc87694efbb0cd82036664"}
```