As a Confluence administrator I would like to get a confirmation before starting a full site import/restore

Problem Definition

The Backup & Restore administration page takes care of both Space Import and Site Restore on the same location.

The only straight differentiator to a site export and a space export is the name of the file, which can be changed while moving it from one place to another.

If, by mistake, the administrator uploads a site export file meaning to perform a space import, there will be no following warning and confirmation before the operations kicks-in and start to delete content from the database.

Suggested Solution

There could be 2 actions to a better solution on the UI:

1. Keep both actions separated so there's no mistake on what type of operation the administrator is doing.
2. When identifying this is a full site import, provide a warning and a confirmation on the UI before deleting content from the database.

Workaround

Validate the import on a lower environment before importing any content in a production instance.
As a Confluence administrator you may also inspect the export files for the following patterns:

1. Space export.
   • If not modified, the file name will be similar to Confluence-space-export-142829-4.xml.zip.
   • Within the export .zip look for the contents of the exportDescriptor.properties file, which should indicate it's a Space export.

     $ unzip -p Confluence-space-export-142829-4.xml.zip exportDescriptor.properties | grep ^exportType
     exportType=space
     

2. Full site export.
   • If not modified, the file name will be similar to xmlexport-20220630-142847-5.zip.
   • Within the export .zip look for the contents of the exportDescriptor.properties file, which should indicate it's a full site export.

     $ unzip -p xmlexport-20220630-142847-5.zip exportDescriptor.properties | grep ^exportType
     exportType=all