Updates & Migrations

Updates and migrations

The SelfHosted backend prepares the SQLite database during startup.

A brand-new empty database is bootstrapped to the current schema. An existing database follows the normal Entity Framework migration path. If the existing schema is not safe to migrate, startup fails rather than silently stamping it as current.

Before updating

Keep a recent local backup or another independent copy of the persistent /data volume.

Upgrade the container

docker compose pull
docker compose up -d

Compose replaces the application container while preserving the mounted /data volume.

Verify startup

Check the service state and recent logs:

docker compose ps
docker compose logs --tail 100 nostos

Confirm that the container remains running and that startup shows no database-bootstrap, migration, storage, or fatal application errors.

Do not rely on one exact success log sentence; startup messages can change while the migration contract remains the same.