Upgrading to a new release

When a new version of Mastodon comes out, it appears on the GitHub releases page. Please mind that running unreleased code from the master branch, while possible, is not recommended.

Mastodon releases correspond to git tags. First, switch to the mastodon user:

su - mastodon

And navigate to the Mastodon root directory:

Download the releases’s code, assuming that the version is called v2.5.0:

git fetch --tags
git checkout v2.5.0

The release page contains a changelog, and below it, upgrade instructions. This is where you would execute them, for example, if the release mentions that you need to re-compile assets, you would execute:

RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rails assets:precompile

After you have executed all special release-specific instructions, the last thing remaining is restarting Mastodon. Usually the streaming API is not updated, and therefore does not require a restart. Restarting the streaming API can lead to an unusually high load on the server, so it is advised to avoid it if possible.

Switch back to root:

exit

You would restart Sidekiq:

systemctl restart mastodon-sidekiq

And you would reload the web process to avoid downtime:

systemctl reload mastodon-web

That’s all! You’re running the new version of Mastodon now.