For those of you that use docker, how do you make sure your docker-compose.yml (and possibly .env) files stay current with the project’s ongoing updates? I’m sure there’s an easier way than what I’m doing which is manually getting the latest ones and checking the diffs in vscodium. And I’m sure some git magic already takes care of this but I’ve been slow in learning git beyond the VERY basics. Thanks!
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I don’t want to use automatic updates on self hosted projects but I subscribe on github / gitlab releases in my rss reader (FreshRSS) and update when I want to!
Thank you for this idea. I wasn’t aware, that you can subscribe to an rss feed for releases on gitlab/github.
I think that I will follow your approach.
Those damn pre-release notifications though!!! (Githubs fault for not implementing filtering)
I use email rules to filter those ones out. Linux server containers are especially egregious.
I don’t pay any mind to example compose files. My are all quite custom anyway. Only thing that matters is paying attention to changelogs and watching for breaking changes.
Same here.
Read deployment documentation, configure compose to my standards, deploy, update where necessary to align with the update (e.g. remove an environment variable.The editing is done on my PC, then I open WinSCP or ssh into it (depending on my mood and amount of changes) and then apply the changes
This is new:
https://github.com/dkorecko/PatchPanda
Self-hostable Docker Compose stack update manager.
And
when you choose to update, PatchPanda edits compose/.env files and runs
docker compose pullanddocker compose up -dfor the target stack. You can also view live log.Discovered in the latest Self Host Weekly:
https://selfh.st/weekly/2025-11-28/
I have not tried it myself tho.
Hmmm I’ve heard of it but haven’t tried it. I’ll dip my toe, thanks!
PatchPanda
I too saw PatchPanda on selfh.st and it is on my watch list. The only thing holding me back is that it isn’t out of beta yet. So, I’m waiting on other selfhosters to plow that field before I deploy. It does look like it would solve a lot of problems tho.
Other than keeping an eye on their changelog or waiting until it breaks, I don’t think you can do anything about that. I do have automatic update, but the config rarely changes from my experience.
I run changedetection and monitor the samples .yml files projects usually host directly at their git repos
Ah ok cool I’ll check that out. Thanks!!
I have automatic updates through a watchtower fork, so I just leave it alone until it breaks, then I go to the project site to see what changed. This has happened maybe twice in the last couple years.
Hope you have backups.
Broke my neck a few times (I currently am waiting out the jellyfin patches and stay on 10.10.7 (i think))
I deploy and update my service similiar to this fantastic guide: https://nickcunningh.am/blog/how-to-automate-version-updates-for-your-self-hosted-docker-containers-with-gitea-renovate-and-komodo
Basically I run Komodo, which pulls a git repo. Renovate opens a PR (and most of the time the changelog is included, so I can quickly check what happened) for new versions. Once merged a webhook fires to tell Komodo to pull the new version.
I really recommend this approach now. Once setup it is very automatic, but not to the point of YOLO-automation like Watchtower and :latest 😅
Genuine question, is there any benefit to docker over podman?
Not that I am aware of. Komodo should be compatible with podman as well.
I set this up a while back (and recently moved to Forgejo, see the update note at the beginning of the article):
Probably a tad overkill honestly but it works amazingly well, and turns every potential upgrade into an approval process so nothing will update when you don’t want it to.
RTFM
Oh you must mean THE manual. Got it.
You can also interpret it as, “Read their fucking manuals.”
This is the kind of attitude that drives people away from open source.
Yes, people should read the manual, but at some point they will have questions, and there are a lot of projects that aren’t clear on certain things. Such as YAML changes.
I cannot recall a single self-hosted software documentation that mentions how to keep the docker config file up to date. Why bother wasting 5 seconds writing such an unhelpful comment
Tell me you don’t read the manual without saying you don’t read the manual.
I can recall a few! Mastodon. Lemmy. PiHole. Penpot. Mealie. Uptime Kuma.
They all mention required steps to upgrade between releases, including what to do to your docker installations and environment variables.
