Directadmin Docs

Updating DirectAdmin

Update channels

DirectAdmin update channels are software release streams allowing DirectAdmin users to select how often they want to receive software updates.

There four update channels:

  • current - default update channel used by new DirectAdmin installations.
  • stable - update channel that delays all the releases compared to current update channel, some minor versions are skipped entirely.
  • beta - update channel also known as pre-releases or release candidates (RC). This channel receives same updates as current channel but a bit earlier.
  • alpha - bleeding edge code usually contains not yet finished features, this update channels can receive bug-fixes almost immediately after they are pushed.

Update channel that is being followed are stored in the main directadmin.conf file with key update_channel. It can be checked with:

da config-get update_channel

And changed with:

da config-set update_channel current

Automated updates

DirectAdmin has a built in auto-update functionality. It automatically detects if a new DirectAdmin release is available and installs the update. Updates are gradually rolled-out to avoid all the systems upgrading at the same time.

This feature is controlled by the autoupdate configuration value in main DirectAdmin config file.

To turn it ON use command:

da config-set autoupdate 1

There's also an autopatch option, used to ensure DirectAdmin has any required hot-fixes within the same version. If you're manually updating DirectAdmin to a non-channel release, that is, to a specific commit hash, to prevent DirectAdmin from updating to the update_channel, you should disable both autoupdate and autopatch:

da config-set autoupdate 0
da config-set autopatch 0
service directadmin restart

Manual update using GUI

Update can be triggered from the GUI in the Licensing / Updates section. If a new DirectAdmin version is available you will see an Update Directadmin button available.

Repos View

Manual update using CLI

Manual update can be triggered by a CLI command da update. When executed without any parameters this command will update DirectAdmin to the latest available version of selected update channel.

It is also possible to update to a specific DA build or latest build from other relese channels (without changing configuration).

Usage examples:

da update               # Update to the latest version from configured update channel
da update alpha         # Update to the latest verdion in alpha channel
da update current       # Update to the latest verdion in current channel
da update 00112233...ff # Update to a particular DA build by specifying the commit hash

Note: DA will revert to the update_channel branch daily, so when manually updating to the alpha channel, or a specific build hash, it's recommended to set your update_channel to alpha until a given feature is relased into the current branch, in which case, you can then set the update_channel back to current. When updating to a specific version via commit hash, you can prevent DA from auto-updating by disabling both the autoupdate and autopatch options.

Manual update using CLI commands

If da update command is not available (it is not present in old DirectAdmin installations) or you want full control of update procedure DirectAdmin can be upgraded completely manually.

Execute the following commands as root user:

CHANNEL=current                                                                                             # can be one of: alpha, beta, current, stable or EOL channels: freebsd, rhel6, debian8, debian9
OS_SLUG=linux_amd64                                                                                         # can be: linux_amd64, linux_arm64, freebsd_amd64
COMMIT=$(dig +short -t txt "$CHANNEL-version.directadmin.com" | sed 's|.*commit=\([0-9a-f]*\).*|\1|')       # can be commit hash literal value if you want specific build to be installed
FILE="directadmin_${COMMIT}_${OS_SLUG}.tar.gz"                                                              # creates download package name from the variables above

curl --location --progress-bar --connect-timeout 10 "https://download.directadmin.com/${FILE}" --output "/root/${FILE}"   # downloads given directadmin build into /root dir
tar xzf "/root/${FILE}" -C /usr/local/directadmin                                                                         # extracts downloaded package to /usr/local/directadmin
/usr/local/directadmin/scripts/update.sh                                                                                  # runs other post upgrade fixes
service directadmin restart							                                          # restarts directadmin

Note: Please do not use this script for updating DirectAdmin on EOL distros. This script will install latest release without checking EOL status which most likely be non-functional on EOL systems.

How to check latest available DirectAdmin version

In an attempt to be more efficient at allowing all DirectAdmin boxes to know which version is the most recent, we've added a new TXT records for each update channel:

  • alpha-version.directadmin.com
  • beta-version.directadmin.com
  • current-version.directadmin.com
  • stable-version.directadmin.com

Example of checking current versions using dig tool:

$ dig +short -t txt alpha-version.directadmin.com beta-version.directadmin.com current-version.directadmin.com stable-version.directadmin.com
"v=1.63.2&commit=00112233445566778899aabbccddeeff00000000"
"v=1.63.1&commit=aa112233445566778899aabbccddeeff00000000"
"v=1.63.1&commit=aa112233445566778899aabbccddeeff00000000"
"v=1.63.0&commit=ff112233445566778899aabbccddeeff00000000"

Extracting just the version string:

$ dig +short -t txt current-version.directadmin.com | sed 's|.*v=\([0-9.]*\).*|\1|'
1.63.1
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