Updating AdventureLog

Keep your self-hosted instance current with the latest images and database migrations. Always back up before updating.

Option 1: scripts/deploy.sh (recommended)

From your install directory (where scripts/deploy.sh and your compose file live):

bash scripts/deploy.sh --backup
bash scripts/deploy.sh --logs   # optional: follow logs after deploy

scripts/deploy.sh validates your env file, creates a backup, pulls images, and runs docker compose up -d --wait.

For Standard Deployment installs:

COMPOSE_FILE=docker/docker-compose.advanced.yml bash scripts/deploy.sh --backup

See Operations & Maintenance for compose auto-detection details.

Option 2: Manual compose

bash scripts/backup.sh

# Standard Deployment
docker compose --env-file .env pull
docker compose --env-file .env up -d --wait

# Advanced Deployment
docker compose --env-file .env.advanced -f docker/docker-compose.advanced.yml pull
docker compose --env-file .env.advanced -f docker/docker-compose.advanced.yml up -d --wait

Option 3: Guided installer menu

If you used the Quick Start Installer, re-run it to open the management menu:

curl -sSL https://get.adventurelog.app | bash

Choose Update to latest images (with optional backup).

Restore from backup

bash scripts/restore.sh backups/YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS

Updating region data

Country and region reference data comes from dr5hn/countries-states-cities-database. To refresh it manually:

docker exec -it <backend-container> bash
python manage.py download-countries --force

Region data version is pinned per AdventureLog release in settings.py and is not auto-updated on every deploy.

What happens during an update

1. New container images are pulled
2. Containers restart with your existing env and volumes
3. Database migrations run automatically on backend startup
4. The /health endpoint confirms the stack is ready