Confluence installer (.bin) may fail with 'ELF file OS ABI invalid' when running on an old Linux distribution

Platform Notice: Data Center Only - This article only applies to Atlassian products on the Data Center platform.

Note that this KB was created for the Data Center version of the product. Data Center KBs for non-Data-Center-specific features may also work for Server versions of the product, however they have not been tested. Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.

*Except Fisheye and Crucible

Summary

Problem

Confluence installer comes with a bundled JRE. Since the change in Oracle Java 8 licensing we decided to use the AdoptOpenJDK. However, while we provide support for most Linux distributions, the installer (ELF) will fail to run in an old distribution (old ABI version - glibc version older than 2.17) that is not supported by AdoptOpenJDK.

You may run into this problem by either installing for the first time or upgrading an existing Confluence.

The following appears in the terminal after executing the installer:

(Auto-migrated image: description temporarily unavailable)

Diagnosis

Environment

Cause

The installer (ELF) will fail to run in an old distribution (old ABI version - glibc version older than 2.17).

Solution

Workaround

  1. While it's possible to attempt updating the related libraries, we do not recommend it. It's best to upgrade or migrate to a supported OS version.

  2. You may use the manual option (.zip) to install/upgrade Confluence but it's required to install Java in the server.

Resolution

Upgrade or migrate to a supported OS version: AdoptOpenJDK supported platforms

Updated on April 8, 2025

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