Upgrading
Circuit Breaker runs database migrations automatically on startup — no manual migration steps are required.
For v1.0 release candidates, upgrade and rollback support is controlled by the
1.0 compatibility policy. Direct 1.0 upgrade support
starts at 0.3.5 unless the release ledger records additional ACC-12 evidence. Always export and
verify a backup before upgrading.
What changed for operators
Native installs keep the application under /opt/circuitbreaker/ with its own
Python tree. circuit-breaker is a launcher into that tree; on package hosts
/usr/local/bin/circuit-breaker remains a symlink. An in-place upgrade replaces
the tree; your .env, data directory, vault key and TLS material stay put.
What to do
Nothing new. Upgrade the same way you always have:
- Native / Proxmox:
cb updateorinstall.sh --upgrade - Packages:
apt upgrade/dnf upgradeonce signed repos exist; until then reinstall the newer package the same way you installed - Docker: pull the image tag you pin (see channels below)
Rollback
During a native upgrade the previous interpreter is renamed to
python.prev (and the old launcher to bin/circuit-breaker.prev) until
/readyz returns 200. After health succeeds those copies are deleted. If the
upgrade fails before that, the installer puts the previous tree back; if you
need a database rollback after a completed upgrade, restore the pre-upgrade
dump and reinstall the previous release (see
Rollback procedures below). Package hosts use
circuit-breaker-rollback.
Release channels
Three image/release channels exist; only stable is production-supported.
| Channel | How it is produced | What users pull |
|---|---|---|
| stable | Promote of a soaked candidate (no rebuild). Default for install.sh and :latest. |
:X, :latest (never for an rc) |
| candidate | Draft GitHub Release becomes a published prerelease; images :<version>-candidate / :candidate. Opt in with install.sh --channel candidate or CB_TAG=candidate. |
published prereleases and the moving :candidate tag |
| nightly | Last green push to dev after artifact-smoke and compose smoke (amd64 image only). Unsupported for production. |
:nightly, :dev-<sha> |
Draft candidate releases are not reachable from unauthenticated install.sh;
release captains soak them with gh release download and --local-bundle.
Check Your Current Version
cb version
Or in the UI: Settings → About.
Native / Proxmox LXC
If you installed natively with install.sh or via the Proxmox LXC helper (cb-proxmox-deploy.sh), upgrade with:
cb update
This re-runs the installer in upgrade mode, which pulls the latest release, restarts the circuitbreaker.target units, and runs migrations automatically.
For Proxmox LXC: SSH into the container first, then run cb update:
ssh root@<container-ip>
cb update
Or from the PVE host:
pct exec <CTID> -- cb update
What persists across upgrades
- Database — all your hardware, services, networks, scans, topology data
- Vault key — encrypted credentials remain readable
- Uploads — custom icons and branding assets
- App settings — auth config, SMTP, OAuth providers, theme preferences
Docker Compose
cd ~/.circuitbreaker
docker compose pull
docker compose up -d
What persists across upgrades
There are no named volumes. Everything lives in the host data directory bind-mounted at /data:
| Mount | Contents |
|---|---|
${CB_DATA_DIR:-./circuitbreaker-data} → /data |
Postgres data, NATS and Redis state, uploads, TLS certificates, vault key |
Recreating the container never touches it.
Pinning to a specific version
Set the tag in ~/.circuitbreaker/.env:
CB_TAG=1.0.0
Then:
docker compose up -d
Only :<version>, :latest, :candidate, and :nightly tags are published
(see Release channels). CB_IMAGE overrides the whole
image reference if you host your own build.
Verifying the Upgrade
cb version
Or check Settings → About in the UI.
Rollback procedures
Native / Proxmox LXC
While an upgrade is in flight, /opt/circuitbreaker/python.prev holds the
previous interpreter until /readyz succeeds; afterwards it is removed. If
/readyz never answers, the installer rolls the tree back itself. After a
completed upgrade that you need to undo, restore the pre-upgrade dump and
reinstall the previous release:
sudo /opt/circuitbreaker/deploy/scripts/restore.sh ${CB_DATA_DIR}/backups/pre-upgrade-<stamp>.sql
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/BlkLeg/CircuitBreaker/main/install.sh | bash -s -- --version 0.3.5
Give --version without the leading v — the installer adds it when
looking up the release tag. Reinstalling the previous release after the restore
is what keeps Alembic from migrating the restored schema forward again.
Distribution packages (deb / rpm)
Packages install the same hermetic tree under /opt/circuitbreaker/. Prefer the
wrapper the package ships — it supplies the package unit name, role and
environment file:
sudo circuit-breaker-rollback
Called with no argument it lists the pre-upgrade backups it can restore. Called with one it performs the restore.
Reinstall the previous package first. This is not optional, and it is the step that is easy to miss:
# 1. stop the service
sudo systemctl stop circuit-breaker
# 2. go back to the previous package
sudo dnf downgrade circuit-breaker # Fedora / RHEL
sudo apt install circuit-breaker=<old> # Debian / Ubuntu
# 3. restore the dump the upgrade took
sudo circuit-breaker-rollback /var/lib/circuit-breaker/backups/pre-upgrade-<stamp>.sql
The pre-upgrade dump carries the old schema. Circuit Breaker runs alembic upgrade head at
startup, so restoring it while the newer binary is installed migrates the schema straight back
forward and the rollback silently undoes itself. Downgrading first is what prevents that.
The dump is taken by the package’s preinstall hook, which runs on upgrade transactions only. Like
install.sh --upgrade, it fails the upgrade if the backup cannot be taken rather than migrating
with nothing to go back to. It skips the backup, and says so, in the two cases where there is
nothing at risk: no environment file, or a database this host cannot reach.
apkpackages get no pre-upgrade backup. Alpine calls a separate.pre-upgradescript that nfpm does not emit, which is one reasonapkis a build-only (Tier 3) format rather than a Tier 1 one. See ADR 0005.
Docker Compose
Set CB_TAG in ~/.circuitbreaker/.env to the previous version, then:
docker compose up -d
Editing .env is the rollback path for an existing install: re-running install.sh --docker --version <version> preserves the .env you already have — secrets live in it — so it only warns
you to set CB_TAG. --version writes CB_TAG itself on a first install, where there is no .env
to preserve.
Review the release notes before rolling back to check for irreversible schema changes.
After 1.0 migrations run, binary downgrade is not supported. Restore the complete pre-upgrade backup instead of starting an older binary against a newer schema.
install.sh --upgrade takes that backup itself, to ${CB_DATA_DIR}/backups/pre-upgrade-<stamp>.sql,
before it stops the services. Two things about it are worth knowing before you need it:
-
It now fails the upgrade if it cannot be taken. It used to print “Backup saved” unconditionally — over a
pg_dumpthat had exited non-zero, or written nothing, or not been found onPATHat all. The upgrade then migrated the schema, and the documented recovery pointed at a file that was empty or absent. -
The artifact is a bare
.sql, anddeploy/scripts/restore.shaccepts it as well as a fullcb-snapshot-*.tar.gz. The rollback the upgrade prints is directly runnable:sudo /opt/circuitbreaker/deploy/scripts/restore.sh ${CB_DATA_DIR}/backups/pre-upgrade-<stamp>.sqlThat path is the
install.shlayout. On a deb/rpm host the restore script is at/usr/local/share/circuit-breaker/deploy/scripts/restore.shand expects a different unit name, role and environment file — runsudo circuit-breaker-rollback <file>there, which supplies them. See Distribution packages above.Note that a bare dump restores the database only — no
uploads/, noCB_VAULT_KEYrewrite, no nginx site config. That is the right shape for rolling back an upgrade, where those are unchanged. For a host rebuild, use a snapshot: see Backup & Restore.
Related
- Backup & Restore — recommended before major upgrades
- cb CLI Tool —
cb updateandcb versionreference
