One of the benefits of building your own node is the freedom to choose what packages you want on your system and how often you update them. Some like to stay on the cutting edge of software releases, whereas others prefer to wait for the wider community to update in case issues are reported. Unless a vital update arises, I typically leave everything as is, updating only once every six months.
The best way to keep up with software releases is by creating Github and Gitlab accounts and following projects of interest. You can then register for update alerts, ensuring you stay updated with the latest package releases. It’s also worth having an account to create bug reports or feature requests.
Before performing any package updates, updating your operating system is always advisable.
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
Updating Bitcoin Core.
As well as GitHub notifications, another great way to keep up with the latest Core releases is by adding bitcoincore.org’s releases RSS feed to your favourite reader.
https://bitcoincore.org/en/releasesrss.xml
You can check the version of Core that is currently installed using the following command.
bitcoin-cli --version
- If a newer version is available, you must first stop Bitcoin CLI.
bitcoin-cli stop
2. Download and verify the latest Core release as we did in the Core installation guide. Don’t forget to modify these commands for whichever Core version you’re installing.
cd ~/downloads
wget https://bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-25.0/bitcoin-25.0-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz
wget https://bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-25.0/SHA256SUMS
wget https://bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-25.0/SHA256SUMS.asc
sha256sum --ignore-missing --check SHA256SUMS
gpg --verify SHA256SUMS.asc
3. Once the download is verified, unpack the archive and delete the sha256 files and the downloaded archive.
tar xzf bitcoin-25.0-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz
rm -r bitcoin-25.0-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz
rm SHA256SUMS
rm SHA256SUMS.asc
4. Next, initialise bitcoind, again modifying the command for your new Core version.
sudo install -m 0755 -o root -g root -t /usr/local/bin bitcoin-25.0/bin/*
sudo systemctl start bitcoind
5. Remove the leftover folder from your downloads directory.
rm -r bitcoin-25.0/
6. Check that the output of the following command reports the new Core version.
bitcoin-cli --version
7. Check the logs to ensure that Core is running correctly and downloading blocks.
cd ~
tail -f .bitcoin/debug.log
Updating Dojo.
You can keep up to date with the latest Dojo releases by following the GitLab repo.
- Go to your “my-dojo” directory and stop Dojo.
cd ~/dojo-app/docker/my-dojo
./dojo.sh stop
2. Next, download the latest Dojo version and unpackage it.
wget https://code.samourai.io/dojo/samourai-dojo/-/archive/master/samourai-dojo-master.zip
unzip samourai-dojo-master.zip -d .
3. Copy the contents over to your “dojo-app” directory.
cp -a samourai-dojo-master/. dojo-app/
4. Remove the archive and remaining folder.
rm samourai-dojo-master.zip
rm -rf samourai-dojo-master
5. Finally, run the upgrade script.
./dojo.sh upgrade
Once the upgrade logs finish, and you start seeing lots of “node.js” logs, the upgrade is complete, and you can safely exit the logs with “control + c”.
Updating Whirlpool CLI.
You can follow new Whirlpool releases using the official Whirlpool GitLab repo.
- From the home directory, stop Whirlpool and remove the Whirlpool folder.
sudo systemctl stop whirlpool
rm -rf whirlpool
2. Create a new Whirlpool directory and fetch the .jar file for the latest CLI version.
mkdir ~/whirlpool
cd ~/whirlpool
3. Go to the Whirlpool CLI repository and download the latest jar file. The command for version 0.10.16 would be as follows.
wget https://code.samourai.io/whirlpool/whirlpool-client-cli/uploads/63621e145967f536a562851853bd0990/whirlpool-client-cli-0.10.16-run.jar
4. Next, you need to edit your system file. In the “WorkingDirectory” section, edit the version number to match your newly downloaded .jar file version.
sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/whirlpool.service
5. And then start the Whirlpool service.
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl start whirlpool
6. Check that the Whirlpool service is active.
sudo systemctl status whirlpool
Updating Mempool.
Thanks to Docker, updating Mempool is incredibly simple. When a new version is tagged on the GitHub repository, you can update it by running the following three commands.
cd ~/mempool/docker
docker compose down --rmi all
docker compose up -d
Updating Fulcrum Indexer.
You can register for Fulcrum updates using the official GitHub repo.
- First, stop Fulcrum and remove ONLY the following files from the Fulcrum directory. Be careful NOT to accidentally remove “fulcrum.conf” as this contains your custom settings.
sudo systemctl stop fulcrum
cd ~/fulcrum/
rm -r Fulcrum
rm -r FulcrumAdmin
rm fulcrum-example-config.conf
rm fulcrum-quick-config.conf
rm -r man
rm LICENSE.txt
rm unix-man-page.md
2. Next, download the latest version of Fulcrum from the GitHub repository.
cd ~/downloads
For example, downloading version 1.9.1, the command would be as follows.
wget https://github.com/cculianu/Fulcrum/releases/download/v1.9.1/Fulcrum-1.9.1-x86_64-linux.tar.gz
3. Now unzip the archive and then delete it. Be careful not to accidentally delete the unpackaged file if using the Tab button’s auto-complete function.
tar xvf Fulcrum-1.9.1-x86_64-linux.tar.gz
rm -r Fulcrum-1.9.1-x86_64-linux.tar.gz
4. Next, move the contents of the unpackaged archive to your Fulcrum directory and remove the empty folder. Change the username in the command if you didn’t use “satoshi“.
mv Fulcrum-1.9.1-x86_64-linux/* /home/satoshi/fulcrum
rm -r Fulcrum-1.9.1-x86_64-linux
5. Now start Fulcrum and restart the Tor service.
sudo systemctl start fulcrum.service
sudo systemctl restart tor
6. To ensure everything runs as expected, check the Fulcrum logs with the following command. You should see regular indexing logs.
journalctl -fu fulcrum.service
Updating Docker Compose.
As with all other updates, you can keep up to date with new Compose releases directly from the GitHub repository. Docker itself will update along with your regular system updates.
You can check which version of the standalone plugin you’re using with the following command.
docker-compose --version
- If a newer version is available, first remove the old version.
sudo rm /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
2. You can now install the new version. Don’t forget to modify the URL for the version you’re updating to. For 2.17.2, the command would be as follows.
sudo curl -SL https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/v2.17.2/docker-compose-linux-x86_64 -o /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
3. Modify the directories permissions.
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
4. Finally, check that the output of the following command reports the new version.
docker-compose --version
