Updates & Backups

Delivr keeps very little state — no mail, just users, settings, and encrypted credentials — so backups are small and updates are quick.

Staying informed

Releases are published on GitHub with release notes. To get notified, open the Delivr API and Delivr Web repositories and choose Watch → Custom → Releases.

Delivr follows semantic versioning:

Version change	What to expect
Patch — `1.0.0` → `1.0.1`	Bug and security fixes. Always safe to apply.
Minor — `1.0.x` → `1.1.0`	New features, backwards compatible. May include database migrations.
Major — `1.x` → `2.0`	Breaking changes. Read the upgrade notes before updating.

Updating

Read the release notes

Check both repositories' release notes for anything that needs your attention, such as new or renamed environment variables.

Back up

Take a backup of the database. Database migrations only run forward, so a backup is your way back.

Pull and restart

cd /opt/delivr
sudo docker compose pull
sudo docker compose up -d
sudo docker image prune -f

# See the manual installation guide for the full commands
cd /opt/delivr/api && sudo -u delivr git fetch --tags && sudo -u delivr git checkout <tag> && sudo -u delivr bun install
cd /opt/delivr/web && sudo -u delivr git fetch --tags && sudo -u delivr git checkout <tag> && sudo -u delivr bun install && sudo -u delivr bun run build
sudo systemctl restart delivr-api delivr-web

On start, the API applies any new database migrations automatically.

Check

curl https://api.mail.example.com/health

Then sign in and open a mailbox. Installed PWAs pick up the new version automatically the next time they're opened.

Always update the API and the web client together and run the same version of both.

Backups

What to back up

What	Where	Why
Database	`data/db.sqlite` (Docker: `./data/`, manual: `/opt/delivr/api/data/`)	Users, sessions, preferences, identities, and encrypted mail-account credentials.
Encryption key	`DLA_ENCRYPTION_KEY` in your Compose file or `.env`	Needed to decrypt the stored credentials. Store it separately from the database backup.
Configuration	`docker-compose.yml`, `.env`, systemd units, proxy config	Lets you rebuild the server quickly.

You don't need to back up mail — it stays on your users' mail servers. Logs in data/logs/ are optional.

A database backup plus the encryption key is enough to decrypt every user's IMAP/SMTP password. Keep them in different places, and encrypt your backups.

Back up the database

SQLite can take a consistent copy while Delivr keeps running. Install the sqlite3 tool on the host and run:

sudo apt install -y sqlite3
sudo sqlite3 /opt/delivr/data/db.sqlite ".backup '/var/backups/delivr-$(date +%F).sqlite'"

Adjust the path to your data directory. To automate it, add a daily cron job in /etc/cron.d/delivr-backup:

crontab

30 3 * * * root sqlite3 /opt/delivr/data/db.sqlite ".backup '/var/backups/delivr-$(date +\%F).sqlite'" && find /var/backups -name 'delivr-*.sqlite' -mtime +14 -delete

Then copy /var/backups to off-site storage with the tool of your choice (restic, borg, rclone, …).

Restore from a backup

Stop the API: docker compose stop delivr-api (or systemctl stop delivr-api).
Replace data/db.sqlite with your backup file and make sure the service can read and write it.
Make sure DLA_ENCRYPTION_KEY is the key that was in use when the backup was taken.
Start the API again. If the backup is from an older version, pending migrations run on start.

There is no automatic key rotation yet. If you change DLA_ENCRYPTION_KEY, Delivr can no longer decrypt the stored mail-account credentials, and every user has to re-enter the passwords of their mail accounts. Only change it if you believe the key was compromised.