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Update Notifications

Self-hosted PingCRM instances show an in-app banner when a new release is available on GitHub. This page covers how the check works, how to turn it off, and how to pin image versions.

How it works​

  • A Celery beat task polls https://api.github.com/repos/sneg55/pingcrm/releases/latest every 6 hours. The backend also triggers a check when a logged-in user loads the version status and nothing is cached yet.
  • The latest release tag is cached in Redis (12-hour TTL) and compared to the version baked into your running image (the APP_VERSION env, set at build time from the git tag). A failed fetch is remembered for 5 minutes before the next on-demand attempt.
  • When a newer version exists, logged-in users see a banner with a link to the GitHub release page and expandable release notes. Dismissing it hides that version in the current browser until a newer release appears.
  • The check is a direct HTTPS call from your server to api.github.com, and no data about your instance is sent. PingCRM has no telemetry endpoint.

Disabling the check​

Set DISABLE_UPDATE_CHECK=1 in the environment of the backend and worker (any non-empty value works, including 0):

DISABLE_UPDATE_CHECK=1

This stops the beat task from calling GitHub and hides the banner. It suits air-gapped deployments and anyone who does not want the dependency.

docker-compose.prod.yml does not forward this variable, so add it under the environment block of the backend and worker services.

Pinning to a specific version​

docker-compose.prod.yml uses :latest by default. To pin a release:

services:
  backend:
    image: ghcr.io/sneg55/pingcrm/backend:1.9.0
  frontend:
    image: ghcr.io/sneg55/pingcrm/frontend:1.9.0

Available tag forms for the backend and frontend images:

  • :1.9.0: exact version
  • :1.9: latest patch in the 1.9 line
  • :1: latest minor in the 1.x line
  • :latest: the newest build, from either a release tag or a push to main
  • :<short sha> and the long SHA: a specific main build

The whatsapp-sidecar image is published only as :latest and by commit SHA.

Dev / SHA builds​

Images built from a main branch push (not a tagged release) set APP_VERSION to the 7-character commit SHA, and images built locally without the build argument use dev. In both cases the banner stays hidden, because a SHA cannot be compared to a semver tag. Since :latest is also pushed on every main build, it can carry a SHA version. Pull a tagged image to re-enable the check.