Auto update your instance with cron

This guide will help you to setup a cron job to automatically update your instance for minor and security updates. It will check periodically if a new minor or security release is available and if so, it will update your instance.

Thanks to DansNewLegs for putting this guide together.

Setup

Create the auto-update script

Create a new script file in a new runtipi/scripts folder called auto-update.sh and paste the following code:


#!/usr/bin/env bash
 
compare_major_version() {
    local major_version1=$(echo "$1" | cut -d. -f1)
    local major_version2=$(echo "$2" | cut -d. -f1)
 
    if [[ "$major_version1" == "$major_version2" ]]; then
        return 0 # Success (major versions match)
    else
        return 1 # Failure (major versions differ)
    fi
}
 
# IMPORTANT: Change this to the path of your Runtipi installation.
runtipi_path="/opt/runtipi"
 
# Validate Runtipi path and VERSION file
if [[ ! -d "$runtipi_path" ]]; then
    echo "Error: Runtipi path '$runtipi_path' not found or is not a directory." >&2
    echo "Please correct the 'runtipi_path' variable in the script." >&2
    exit 1
fi
version_file="$runtipi_path/VERSION"
if [[ ! -f "$version_file" ]]; then
    echo "Error: Version file '$version_file' not found." >&2
    exit 1
fi
 
# Get Current Version of Runtipi
current_version=$(cat "$version_file")
if [[ -z "$current_version" ]]; then
    echo "Error: Could not read current version from '$version_file'." >&2
    exit 1
fi
echo "Current version: $current_version"
 
# Get the latest release information from GitHub API
echo "Fetching latest release info..."
latest_release=$(curl -fsSL \
  -H "Accept: application/vnd.github+json" \
  -H "X-GitHub-Api-Version: 2022-11-28" \
  https://api.github.com/repos/runtipi/runtipi/releases/latest)
 
if [[ $? -ne 0 || -z "$latest_release" ]]; then
    echo "Error: Failed to fetch release information from GitHub." >&2
    exit 1
fi
 
tag_name=$(echo "$latest_release" | grep -o '"tag_name": "[^"]*' | cut -d'"' -f4)
 
if [[ -z "$tag_name" ]]; then
    echo "Error: Could not extract tag_name from GitHub API response." >&2
    exit 1
fi
echo "Latest version: $tag_name"
 
compare_major_version "$tag_name" "$current_version"
major_version_match=$?
 
is_newer=1
if [[ "$tag_name" != "$current_version" ]]; then
    latest_sorted=$(printf '%s\n%s\n' "$current_version" "$tag_name" | sort -V | tail -n1)
    if [[ "$latest_sorted" == "$tag_name" ]]; then
        is_newer=0
    fi
fi
 
if [[ $major_version_match -eq 0 ]] && [[ $is_newer -eq 0 ]]; then
    echo "A new compatible release is available: $tag_name"
 
    runtipi_cli="$runtipi_path/runtipi-cli"
    if [[ ! -x "$runtipi_cli" ]]; then
        echo "Error: Runtipi CLI '$runtipi_cli' not found or not executable." >&2
        exit 1
    fi
 
    cd "$runtipi_path" || exit 1
 
    echo "Backing up current version..."
    backup_dir="backups"
    backup_file="runtipi-backup-$current_version.tar.gz"
    backup_path="$backup_dir/$backup_file"
 
    if [ ! -d "$backup_dir" ]; then
        mkdir -p "$backup_dir"
    fi
 
    echo "Creating backup: $backup_path"
 
    if tar -czf "$backup_path" --exclude=./media --exclude=./"$backup_dir" .; then
        echo "Backup successful."
        echo "Starting update..."
 
        if "$runtipi_cli" update latest; then
             echo "Update command finished."
        else
             echo "Error: Runtipi update command failed. Check output above." >&2
             echo "Restore from backup '$backup_path' if necessary." >&2
             exit 1
        fi
    else
        echo "Error: Failed to create backup archive '$backup_path'." >&2
        exit 1
    fi
else
    if [[ "$tag_name" == "$current_version" ]]; then
        echo "You are already running the latest version ($current_version)."
    elif [[ $major_version_match -ne 0 ]]; then
        echo "No new release found. Major version mismatch (Current: $current_version, Latest: $tag_name)."
    else
        echo "No new release found."
    fi
fi
 
echo "Update check complete."
exit 0

This script will check if a new release is available and if so, it will backup your current installation and update to the latest release.

⚠️

Make sure to change the runtipi_path variable to the path of your Runtipi installation.

Make the script executable

Make the script executable by running the following command:


chmod +x ./auto-update.sh

Create a cron job

Open your crontab file by running the following command:


sudo crontab -e

Add a new line at the bottom of the file with the following content:


0 4 * * * /path/to/runtipi/scripts/auto-update.sh

Or if you want to log the output of the script to a file for debugging purposes:


0 4 * * * /path/to/runtipi/scripts/auto-update.sh >> /path/to/runtipi/scripts/auto-update.log 2>&1

This will run the script every day at 4am. You can change the time to your liking. Crontab Guru is a great tool to help you with creating cron jobs.