Updating on Linux

This tutorial demonstrates commands for updating FreshRSS. It assumes that your main FreshRSS directory is /usr/share/FreshRSS; If you’ve installed it somewhere else, substitute your path as necessary.

Note that FreshRSS contains a built-in update system. It’s easier to use if you don’t understand the commands that follow. It’s available through the web interface of your FreshRSS installation, Administration → Update.

Please read the general advices from “Backing Up and Updating FreshRSS” before applying any command from this guide.

Pausing automatic feed updates

If Automatic Feed Updating has been configured, temporarily suspend the automatic feed updates during the upgrade process.

Before performing the upgrade:

  1. cron method: run sudo crontab -e and comment out the task
  2. systemd method: run sudo systemctl stop freshrss.timer

After performing the upgrade:

  1. cron method: run sudo crontab -e and uncomment the task
  2. systemd method: run sudo systemctl start freshrss.timer

You may wish to run the cron task or systemd unit (freshrss.service) immediately after the upgrade to ensure the automatic feed updates are functioning correctly.

Using git

You must have used git to install FreshRSS to use this update method.

If your local user doesn’t have write access to the FreshRSS folder, use a sudo shell (sudo -s), prefix the following commands with sudo, or switch to an account that does have write access to the folder.

  1. Change to your FreshRSS directory 
     cd /usr/share/FreshRSS/
  2. Fetch the most recent code from GitHub 
     git fetch --all
  3. Discard manual changes and delete manual additions 
     git reset --hard
 git clean -f -d

    Note: If you wish to keep your changes, it’s better to create a pull request or an extension.

  4. Update FreshRSS 
     git checkout edge
 git pull --ff-only

    ℹ️ Use edge for the rolling release or latest for the latest stable release.

  5. (optional) Make sure you use the correct version 
     git status

    The command should tell you the branch that you’re using. It must be the same as the one associated with the latest release on GitHub. If you use the rolling release, it should tell you that your edge branch is up to date with origin.

  6. Re-set correct permissions so that your web server can access the files 
     cli/access-permissions.sh

Using the Zip archive

If your local user doesn’t have write access to the FreshRSS folder, use a sudo shell (sudo -s), prefix the following commands with sudo, or switch to an account that does have write access to the folder.

  1. Change to your FreshRSS directory 
     cd /usr/share/FreshRSS/

  2. Get the link to the Zip archive for the latest release: https://github.com/FreshRSS/FreshRSS/archive/latest.zip. If you want to use the rolling release, the link is https://github.com/FreshRSS/FreshRSS/archive/edge.zip.

  3. Download and unzip the update file 
     wget -O freshrss.zip https://github.com/FreshRSS/FreshRSS/archive/latest.zip
 unzip freshrss.zip
  4. Overwrite all your existing files with the new ones 
     cp -R FreshRSS-*/* .
  5. Re-set permissions 
     cli/access-permissions.sh
  6. Clean up the FreshRSS directory by deleting the downloaded zip and the temporary directory 
     rm -f freshrss.zip
 rm -rf FreshRSS-*/