Upgrading

CertForge upgrades are a binary swap. The data directory is forward-compatible — new versions run schema migrations automatically on startup.

Before you upgrade

Check the changelog for breaking changes

Back up your data directory:

tar -czf certforge-data-backup-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz /opt/certforge/data

If using PostgreSQL, take a database backup:

pg_dump -U certforge certforge > certforge-db-backup-$(date +%Y%m%d).sql

Upgrade steps

# 1. Download the new binary
curl -Lo /tmp/certforge-new \
  https://github.com/certforge/self-hosted/releases/latest/download/certforge-linux-amd64
chmod +x /tmp/certforge-new

# 2. Verify it starts (--version doesn't need config)
/tmp/certforge-new --version

# 3. Stop the service
systemctl stop certforge

# 4. Replace the binary
cp /tmp/certforge-new /usr/local/bin/certforge

# 5. Start the service
systemctl start certforge
systemctl status certforge

Migrations (if any) run automatically on startup. Watch the logs:

journalctl -u certforge -f

Rollback

If something goes wrong, restore the previous binary and restart:

# Assuming you kept the previous binary as certforge.prev
systemctl stop certforge
cp /usr/local/bin/certforge.prev /usr/local/bin/certforge
systemctl start certforge

If the database schema was migrated forward, rolling back the binary may fail on migrations that the older binary doesn’t understand. Restore from your database backup in that case.

Version pinning

To pin to a specific version, replace latest with the version tag:

curl -Lo certforge \
  https://github.com/certforge/self-hosted/releases/download/v1.2.3/certforge-linux-amd64

In-product update notifications

When a new version is available, a banner appears in the dashboard License page (/license) and the running version is shown alongside the latest available version. Upgrades are always manual — CertForge will not update itself automatically.

Getting Started

Core Concepts

Guides

Reference

Trust & Security

Self-Hosted

Before you upgrade

Upgrade steps

Rollback

Version pinning

In-product update notifications

​Before you upgrade

​Upgrade steps

​Rollback

​Version pinning

​In-product update notifications

Before you upgrade

Upgrade steps

Rollback

Version pinning

In-product update notifications