Update and back up the server

Update to a new release

Each release is a tag on main, such as 0.3.0, with an image of the same name. The latest tag follows releases, and edge follows main. Read the release notes before you update.

To update with Docker, pull the image and run the container again with the same volumes:

docker pull ghcr.io/readchek/chek:latest
docker stop chek && docker rm chek
# Run the same docker run command as before.

• With Compose, run docker compose pull && docker compose up -d.
• With Dokploy, deploy the application again.

Keep the data volume. The server migrates the database when a new version starts. If a release changes how the server reads files, the migration starts a full rescan. So the first start after an update can scan every library again.

To stay on one release, use its tag, such as ghcr.io/readchek/chek:0.3.0. Change the tag when you are ready to update.

Know what to back up

The data folder holds these files. Your books stay in your own folders, which the server only reads.

Path	Contents	If you lose it
chek.db	Accounts, libraries, reading positions, bookmarks, highlights, metadata edits, and settings	It’s gone. Back it up
extensions/state.db	The caches and cookies of extensions	Extensions start again from empty. People may need to verify sites again
extensions/*.wasm	Installed extensions	The server downloads them again on the next install
extensions/images/	Cached covers and pages from extensions	The server fetches them again
covers/	Cover thumbnails	The next scan makes them again

Back up the database

The database uses SQLite’s WAL mode. If you copy chek.db while the server writes to it, the copy can be incomplete. Use one of these two ways.

To back up with the server stopped, stop it and copy the files:

docker stop chek
docker run --rm -v chek-data:/data -v "$PWD":/backup debian:trixie-slim \
  tar czf /backup/chek-data.tgz -C /data chek.db extensions/state.db
docker start chek

To back up while the server runs, use the sqlite3 tool on the host:

sqlite3 /path/to/data/chek.db ".backup '/backups/chek.db'"

To restore, put chek.db in an empty data folder before the server starts.