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 tocurrent
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 ascurrent
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
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.
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
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
.
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