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Upgrading LibreTime
LibreTime versioning
LibreTime 3.x versions support upgrading from Airtime 2.5.x versions. LibreTime follows the Semantic Versioning (semver) standards.
In a nutshell, given a version number MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH we increment the:
- MAJOR version when we make incompatible API changes,
- MINOR version when we add functionality in a backwards-compatible manner, and
- PATCH version when we make backwards-compatible bug fixes.
Any pre-release versions of LibreTime are denoted by appending a hyphen and a series of dot separated identifiers immediately following the patch version. This pre-release indicates that the version is unstable in a sense that it might contain incomplete features or not satisfy the intended compatibility requirements as per semver.
Upgrading
Before upgrading a production LibreTime server, you should back up both the PostgreSQL database and the storage server used by LibreTime. This is especially important if you have not already set up a regular back up routine. This extra back up is a safety measure in case of accidental data loss during the upgrade, for example due to the wrong command being entered when moving files. See Backing up the server in this manual for details of how to perform these back ups.
The LibreTime installation script will detect an existing LibreTime or Airtime deployment and back up any configuration files that it finds. We recommend taking your own manual backups of the configuration yourself nevertheless. The install script also tries to restart the needed services during an upgrade. In any case you should monitor if this happened and also take a quick look at the logs files to be sure everything is still fine. Now might be the time to reboot the system or virtual machine LibreTime is running on since regular reboots are part of a healthy system anyway.
After the upgrade has completed, you may need to clear your web browser's cache before logging into the new version of the LibreTime administration interface. If the playout engine starts up and detects that a show should be playing at the current time, it will skip to the correct point in the current item and start playing.
There will be tested ways to switch from a LibreTime pre-release to a packaged version of LibreTime.
Airtime 2.5.x versions support upgrading from version 2.3.0 and above. If you are running a production server with a version of Airtime prior to 2.3.0, you should upgrade it to version 2.3.0 before continuing.
In Airtime 1.9.0 onwards, the concept of linked files was replaced with the concept of watched folders. If you are upgrading from a version of Airtime earlier than 1.9.0 and you have previously linked files, the folders they are in will not be watched until you add them to your watched folder list. See Media Folders for more details.
Upgrading the server distribution
After your LibreTime server has been deployed for a few years, you may need to upgrade the GNU/Linux distribution that it runs in order to maintain security update support. If the upgrade does not go smoothly, it may cause significant downtime, so you should always have a fallback system available during the upgrade to ensure broadcast continuity.