Update

Each installation guide includes backup and update instructions matching the installation method used.

This document lists special update instructions when you update to a certain version.

Update from 1.20.0 or earlier

docker compose

In the configuration of 1.20.0 and earlier, the PostgreSQL container does not store data on a named volume. This means that the database would be lost if the container is removed. This does not happen during the reboot of a server or during the normal upgrade procedure. None the less, it is still safer to use named volumes to store data, so the docker compose setup starting with 1.21.0 uses named volumes for PostgreSQL (and also Redis).

If you perform the normal update procedure, no data is lost, but you will receive a warning about the services using data from the previous container:

$ docker compose up -d
Recreating django-ca_db_1 ...
Recreating django-ca_cache_1 ...
WARNING: Service "db" is using volume "/var/lib/postgresql/data" from the previous container. Host mapping
"django-ca_pgdata" has no effect. Remove the existing containers (with `docker compose rm db`) to use the host volume mapping.
...

To switch to named volumes, create a database backup, remove and recreate the db container with the new configuration and import the backup again. While possible, these instructions do not backup Redis data, since it is only a cache.

First, stop containers that might access the database:

$ docker compose stop frontend
$ docker compose stop backend

Second, create a dump of the database (Note: if you use a different database name or username, adapt accordingly):

$ docker compose exec db pg_dump -U postgres postgres > db.sql

Third, you might want to check if db.sql contains a valid database dump.

Fourth, remove the containers:

$ docker compose rm -sf cache db

Fifth, if you haven’t already, update your docker-compose.yml. To verify you have the named volumes, check that both the db and cache services have a volume with them. It does not matter if you have updated the file before performing the above steps.

Sixth, start the db container again (it will be recreated) and import the dump.

$ docker compose up -d db
$ docker compose exec -T db psql -U postgres postgres < db.sql

Seventh, start all other containers:

$ docker compose up -d

And finally, verify success - you should see your CAs:

$ docker compose exec backend manage list_cas
...

Update from 1.18 or earlier

If you use docker compose, you need to backup private keys and update your docker-compose.yml before upgrading. If you don’t private keys will be lost. The change to docker-compose.yml will make sure that keys will survive the next update.

First, you need to copy your private keys to a permanently stored location. If you do not have any keys in either the backend or frontend, mv will throw an error, which is of course fine in this case:

$ docker compose exec backend mkdir -p /var/lib/django-ca/certs/ca/shared/backend/
$ docker compose exec backend /bin/sh -c "cp /var/lib/django-ca/certs/ca/*.key /var/lib/django-ca/certs/ca/shared/backend/"
$ docker compose exec frontend mkdir -p /var/lib/django-ca/certs/ca/shared/frontend/
$ docker compose exec frontend /bin/sh -c "cp /var/lib/django-ca/certs/ca/*.key /var/lib/django-ca/certs/ca/shared/frontend/"

Note that if you have stored private keys in any custom location with the --path argument, you need to backup these locations as well.

Second, update your docker-compose.yml file. Either get the latest version of the file, or apply this diff:

--- docker-compose.yml.orig
+++ docker-compose.yml
@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ services:
             - database
             - public
         volumes:
+            - backend_ca_dir:/var/lib/django-ca/certs/
             - shared_ca_dir:/var/lib/django-ca/certs/ca/shared/
             - ocsp_key_dir:/var/lib/django-ca/certs/ocsp/
             - shared:/var/lib/django-ca/shared/
@@ -65,6 +66,7 @@ services:
             - frontend
         volumes:
             - static:/usr/share/django-ca/static/
+            - frontend_ca_dir:/var/lib/django-ca/certs/
             - shared_ca_dir:/var/lib/django-ca/certs/ca/shared/
             - ocsp_key_dir:/var/lib/django-ca/certs/ocsp/
             - shared:/var/lib/django-ca/shared/
@@ -116,6 +118,8 @@ services:
 volumes:
     shared:
     static:
+    backend_ca_dir:
+    frontend_ca_dir:
     shared_ca_dir:
     ocsp_key_dir:
     nginx_config:

Third, do a normal upgrade:

$ docker compose pull
$ docker compose up -d

Finally, move the keys from the temporary location to the primary location:

$ docker compose exec backend /bin/sh -c "mv /var/lib/django-ca/certs/ca/shared/backend/*.key /var/lib/django-ca/certs/ca/"
$ docker compose exec backend rmdir /var/lib/django-ca/certs/ca/shared/backend/
$ docker compose exec frontend /bin/sh -c "mv /var/lib/django-ca/certs/ca/shared/frontend/*.key /var/lib/django-ca/certs/ca/"
$ docker compose exec frontend rmdir /var/lib/django-ca/certs/ca/shared/frontend/

Update from 1.17 or earlier

Please see documentation for previous versions on documentation how to upgrade.