We recently updated our Mastodon installer to use Mastodon v4.2.5 running on Ruby v3.2 with Node.js v20. If you are running an earlier version of Mastodon and would like to update it to the latest version with the newer Ruby and Node.js then you can do so with the following steps.

Note that the procedure below uses placeholders which you'll need to substitute as follows:

app_user - the name of your Mastodon application's shell user. Your shell user names are available at: https://my.opalstack.com/apps/
app_name - the name of your Mastodon application. Your app names are available at: https://my.opalstack.com/apps/
db_user - the name of your database user, available in: ~/apps/app_name/mastodon/.env.production
db_name - the name of your database, available in: ~/apps/app_name/mastodon/.env.production

To proceed:

Log in as your Mastodon app's shell user.

Run the following commands to make a backup (if you're on a VPS make sure you have sufficient space first by running "df -h /" on the server):

pg_dump -U db_user -f ~/apps/app_name/db.sql db_name
cp -Rp ~/apps/app_name ~/app_name_backup

Run the following command to disable your cron jobs:

crontab -l | sed -e 's/^/# /g' | crontab

Note: this will disable all of your cron jobs for your shell user. If you have cron jobs unrelated to your Mastodon app and you don't want them disabled then run crontab -e to edit your cron jobs manually.

Run the following commands to perform the upgrade, replacing app_user and app_name with your own.

Note that the app will be offline during the upgrade due to the memory constraints of your hosting plan. If you're certain you have a lot of spare RAM (for example if you are on a 4GB VPS or higher with at least 2GB of free RAM) and don't want the site to be offline then you can omit the ../stop command at your own risk.

cd ~/apps/app_name/
./stop
mkdir old
mv {node,restart,setenv,start,stop,supervisord.conf} ./old/
mkdir -p node/bin
scl enable nodejs20 -- corepack enable --install-directory=$PWD/node/bin
scl enable nodejs20 -- $PWD/node/bin/yarn set version classic
wget https://github.com/opalstack/installers/raw/master/core/mastodon/mastodon_scripts.tar.gz
tar zxf mastodon_scripts.tar.gz --strip 1
sed -i -e 's/SHELL_USER/app_user/g' {restart,setenv,start,stop,supervisord.conf}
sed -i -e 's/NAME_OF_APP/app_name/g' {restart,setenv,start,stop,supervisord.conf}
chmod u+x {restart,start,stop}
source setenv
cd mastodon
git checkout -- .
git fetch && git checkout v4.2.7
bundle config set jobs 4
bundle install
yarn install --frozen-lockfile
bundle exec rails assets:precompile

# run the next command ONLY if upgrading from <v4.2.0, otherwise proceed to the kill command
SKIP_POST_DEPLOYMENT_MIGRATIONS=true bundle exec rails db:migrate

kill $( cat tmp/pids/supervisord.pid )
# wait a few seconds
../restart

# run the next command ONLY if upgrading from <v4.2.0
bundle exec rails db:migrate

Run the following command to re-enable your cron jobs (or run crontab -e to edit your cron jobs manually):

crontab -l |  sed -e 's/^# //g' | crontab

Your backup will very likely use a lot of disk space. To remove it following the upgrade, run the following command:

rm -rf ~/app_name_backup

You're done!