Back in the day it was nice, apt get update && apt get upgrade and you were done.
But today every tool/service has it’s own way to being installed and updated:
- docker:latest
- docker:v1.2.3
- custom script
- git checkout v1.2.3
- same but with custom migration commands afterwards
- custom commands change from release to release
- expect to do update as a specific user
- update nginx config
- update own default config and service has dependencies on the config changes
- expect new versions of tools
- etc.
I selfhost around 20 services like PieFed, Mastodon, PeerTube, Paperless-ngx, Immich, open-webui, Grafana, etc. And all of them have some dependencies which need to be updated too.
And nowadays you can’t really keep running on an older version especially when it’s internet facing.
So anyway, what are your strategies how to keep sanity while keeping all your self hosted services up to date?
I keep it simple, although reading down through the thread, there are some really nice and ingenious ways people accomplish about the same thing, which is totally awesome. I use a WatchTower fork and run it with
--run-once --cleanup. I do this when I feel comfortable that all the early adopters have done all the beta testing for me. Thanks early adopters. So, about 1 a month or so, I update 70 Docker containers. As far as OS updates, I usually hit those when they deploy. I’m running Ubuntu Jammy, so not a lot of breaking changes in updates. I don’t have public facing services, and I am the only user on my network, so I don’t really have to worry too much about that aspect.