How to set up Pilot Light for Confluence

Pilot Light is a Rewind Labs Preview. Before you start, review Pilot Light for Confluence: feature overview for the limits that apply.

Before you begin

• You're on the Advanced or Enterprise plan of Rewind Backups for Confluence.
• Your Rewind app for Confluence is up to date in Atlassian Admin.
• Rewind has completed at least one successful backup of your Confluence site.
• You know which spaces your team needs during an outage, and which groups or teams should see each one.

If you don't see a Pilot Light tab on your Confluence site in Rewind (app.rewind.com), contact support.

What to expect

• You choose who sees each space
  Pilot Light doesn't copy your Confluence permissions. Instead, you assign Confluence groups and teams to each space, then activate the people who need access.
• Your team doesn't need Rewind accounts
  The people you activate sign in to Pilot Light with their work email and a one-time code.
• The first user sync takes 10 to 15 minutes
  You can leave the page while it runs and come back to the next step later.
• Access changes take up to five minutes
  This applies when you activate or deactivate people, or turn Pilot Light off for a backup configuration.
• Limits apply
  You can authorize up to three backup configurations, with up to 25 activated people on each.

Setup at a glance

Setup has six steps:

1. Sync your Confluence users
2. Create a backup configuration and assign groups to spaces
3. Authorize the backup configuration
4. Activate people
5. Share the Pilot Light link
6. Sign in to Pilot Light (for your team)

Step 1: Sync your Confluence users

1. Log in to Rewind at app.rewind.com.
2. In the left menu, expand Confluence and select your site.
3. Click Manage backup configuration. The first time you open it, Rewind asks you to sync your users.
4. Start the sync from the prompt.

The sync takes about 10 to 15 minutes, and you can leave the page while it runs. It needs to finish before you can create a backup configuration. If you closed the prompt, a banner on the page reminds you that the sync is still pending.

After that, Rewind syncs your users, groups, and teams every 24 hours while a backup configuration is authorized. The sync status shows Not synced, Sync in progress, or when the last sync ran. If you see User sync failed, start the sync again. If it keeps failing, contact support.

Step 2: Create a backup configuration and assign groups to spaces

If you already have a backup configuration with the spaces you need, open it and go straight to assigning groups and teams.

1. Click Create configuration.
2. Enter a name, like "Pilot Light". You can keep the default backup frequency and retention settings.
3. Select the spaces your team needs during an outage. Personal spaces have a Personal space tag, and you can use the filter to include or exclude them.
4. For each space, assign the Confluence groups or teams that should see it in Pilot Light. You can search by name. Each result is labeled Group or Team.
5. Save the configuration.

Assign groups and teams that have access to Confluence. Rewind lists every group in your Atlassian organization, including groups for other products, and members of those groups won't see any content. Each space can be in one backup configuration.

Step 3: Authorize the backup configuration

1. On your Confluence site in Rewind, click the Pilot Light tab.
2. Open the backup configuration.
3. Turn on Authorize.

Authorizing gets the configuration's spaces ready for Pilot Light, but no one can see them until you activate people. If a user sync is running, wait for it to finish before you authorize.

Step 4: Activate people

1. In the authorized backup configuration, click Add users.
2. Expand a group or team to see its members.
3. Select the people who need access.
4. Click Activate Pilot Light.

If someone joins a group or team later, they don't get access automatically. Activate them here.

Step 5: Share the Pilot Light link

1. Copy your Pilot Light link from the Pilot Light tab.
2. Send it to the people you activated. Use a channel your team can reach during an outage, like email or chat.

Your Confluence site has one Pilot Light link, separate from any Pilot Light for Jira link. Rewind doesn't email it to your team, so share it before you need it.

Step 6: Sign in to Pilot Light (for your team)

1. Open the Pilot Light link.
2. Enter your work email address and click Send code. Use the same email as your Atlassian account.
3. Enter the six-digit code from your email and click Verify. If the code doesn't arrive, click Resend.

You'll see the spaces you can access, in read-only mode. Open a space to browse its pages, or search across your spaces.

Manage access

• Add or remove people
  Click Manage users on the backup configuration. To remove people, select them and click Deactivate. To remove everyone, click Deactivate all. To add people, follow step 4. People you remove see a message that their administrator ended their access.
• Keep access up to date
  People suspended or removed in Confluence lose access after the next daily sync. When people join or leave a group or team, review who's activated.
• Turn off Pilot Light for a configuration
  Deactivate everyone on the configuration, then turn off Authorize. You can't turn off Authorize while people are still active.

Rewind records every authorize, deauthorize, activate, and deactivate action in your audit log.

Common questions

• Pilot Light for Confluence: feature overview What's included in the preview and the limits that apply.
• How to create and update Backup Policies for Confluence More about backup configurations.
• Action required: Update the Rewind app in Atlassian Admin How to update your Rewind app before you start.
• User roles and permissions in Rewind (RBAC) The roles that can set up and manage Pilot Light.