BOOTC-UPGRADE(8)

πŸ’… BOOTC-UPGRADE(8) β€” the bootc-upgrade page, but make it make sense

okay so bestie, this one lives in the System Manager's Manual section 8, and it's literally the glow-up button for your system. buckle up πŸŽ€


✨ NAME ✨

bootc-upgrade β€” download and queue an updated container image to apply πŸ¦‹


🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

bootc upgrade [OPTIONS...]

πŸ’– DESCRIPTION πŸ’–

Download and queue an updated container image to apply. that's the whole vibe, no cap.

here's the important part though: this does not affect the running system. nope. updates operate in an "A/B" style by default, so your currently-running self is safe and sound while the new one waits in the wings πŸ’…

a queued update shows up as staged in bootc status. so if you're wondering "did it work??" β€” go check status, bestie.


πŸ” Checking for Updates πŸ”

the --check option lets you verify if updates are available without downloading the full image layers. it only grabs the updated manifest and image configuration (typically kilobyte-sized metadata, tiny little snack πŸ“), which makes it much faster than a full upgrade. it's giving "peek at the menu before you order" energy.


πŸš€ Applying Updates πŸš€

currently, by default, the update gets applied at shutdown time via ostree-finalize-staged.service. so it kinda just... happens when you leave. iconic behavior honestly.

there's also an explicit bootc upgrade --apply verb which will automatically take action (rebooting, bestie, a whole reboot) if the system has changed.

⚠️ however β€” in the future this is likely to change, such that reboots outside of a bootc upgrade --apply do not automatically apply the update in addition. so don't build your whole personality around the current default, k? 😭

🧚 Soft Reboot 🧚

for shared --apply and --soft-reboot behavior, see Soft reboots (check out bootc-upgrades(7)). go read it, it's right there 🫢


πŸ‘‘ OPTIONS πŸ‘‘

  • --quiet β€” don't display progress. silence, but make it ✨intentional✨
  • --check β€” check if an update is available without applying it
  • --apply β€” restart or reboot into the new target image πŸ”₯
  • --soft-reboot=SOFT_REBOOT β€” configure soft reboot behavior
    • possible values:
      • required
      • auto
  • --download-only β€” download and stage the update without applying it
  • --from-downloaded β€” apply a staged deployment that was previously downloaded with --download-only
  • --tag=TAG β€” upgrade to a different tag of the currently booted image 🌈

🌟 EXAMPLES 🌟

check for available updates:

bootc upgrade --check

upgrade and immediately apply the changes:

bootc upgrade --apply

upgrade with soft reboot if possible:

bootc upgrade --apply --soft-reboot=auto

upgrade to a different tag:

bootc upgrade --tag v1.2

check if a specific tag has updates before applying:

bootc upgrade --tag prod --check

upgrade to a tag and immediately apply:

bootc upgrade --tag v2.0 --apply

πŸ¦‹ SEE ALSO πŸ¦‹

bootc(8), bootc-switch(8), bootc-status(8), bootc-rollback(8) β€” the whole friend group, go say hi πŸ’œ


⭐ VERSION ⭐

v1.17.1 β€” yeah that's the version, and that's the tea β˜•


and that's the whole page, bestie!! you ate this. go forth and bootc upgrade responsibly. mwah πŸ’–πŸŽ€βœ¨ periodt.

BOOTC-UPGRADE(8) β€” part of the System Manager's Manual, version v1.17.1. bye babes!! 🫢

πŸ“¦ where this page comes from
  • fedora 43: bootc 1.17.1-1.fc43 Β· Apache-2.0 AND BSD-3-Clause AND MIT AND (Apache-2.0 OR BSL-1.0) AND (Apache-2.0 OR MIT) AND (Apache-2.0 WITH LLVM-exception OR Apache-2.0 OR MIT) AND (Unlicense OR MIT)
  • fedora 44: bootc 1.17.1-1.fc44 Β· Apache-2.0 AND BSD-3-Clause AND MIT AND (Apache-2.0 OR BSL-1.0) AND (Apache-2.0 OR MIT) AND (Apache-2.0 WITH LLVM-exception OR Apache-2.0 OR MIT) AND (Unlicense OR MIT)
  • πŸ’– girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash on : a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms