Production telemetry (7d, 2026-07-17) shows a persistent tail of live
installs on 6.0.0-rc.x and 6.0.3/6.0.4 while 6.0.5 has been stable since
2026-07-09. Root cause for the reachable stranding class: release
selection trusted GitHub's created_at ordering, and this repo interleaves
v5-line maintenance releases with v6 releases (v5.1.36 was created the
day before v6.0.5). Whenever a v5.1.x release is the most recently
created stable:
- stable channel (getLatestReleaseForChannel) returned the first
non-prerelease in list order -> "no update" for every v6 install
until the next v6 release ships
- the RSS rate-limit fallback returned the first feed entry matching the
channel, same failure, both channels
- the unattended updater trusted /releases/latest, which GitHub defines
as most-recently-created stable -> timer no-ops in the same window
All three now select the highest eligible version: the API path tracks
newest stable + newest prerelease in one pass (prerelease = GitHub flag
OR tag shape), the feed fallback picks the max matching the channel, and
pulse-auto-update.sh scans /releases pairing each tag with its own
draft/prerelease flags before the fail-closed shape filter, keeping
/releases/latest as fallback. helm-chart-* tags fail semver parsing and
are dropped everywhere.
Verified not broken (pinned by new tests): rc-channel installs are
offered the newer stable (6.0.0-rc.6 -> 6.0.5) and move onto the next rc
line when one opens (-> 6.1.0-rc.2); the auto-update prerelease filter
(fail-closed is_prerelease_tag, metadata-flag refusal) still refuses
prerelease targets on stable. Go tests fail on the pre-fix code
(returned 5.1.37 / "no update").
Contract: deployment-installability now pins version-max release
selection with proofs in manager_stranded_upgrade_test.go and
pulse_auto_update_test.go.
The in-app updater and the unattended timer both target the public
rcourtman/Pulse community assets, so a Pro install that used them was
silently downgraded to community. Guard 2 (983a89326) blocked in-app
apply on the Pro edition, which stopped the downgrade but left Pro
installs with no update path except manual portal downloads. That
friction is a plausible driver of the runtime split: as of 2026-07-08
only 10 of 66 active paid licenses have any Pro-runtime install.
Root fix: the compiled Pro binary now checks and applies updates
through the license server download broker (GET /v1/downloads/pulse-pro
with the installation token and instance fingerprint). The check
compares against the broker's pinned private release instead of GitHub,
respecting the stable/rc channel guard. Apply re-resolves fresh signed
R2 URLs at apply time, verifies the archive against the same pinned
pulse-installer SSHSIG key plus the broker manifest sha256, and refuses
GitHub-shaped download URLs outright. An unactivated Pro binary still
refuses with the portal fallback. The community edition path is
unchanged.
The update banner restores in-app apply for auto-updatable Pro
deployments and keeps the portal instructions for deployments the
updater cannot drive (Docker). scripts/pulse-auto-update.sh now skips
when the installed binary reports Pulse Pro so the unattended timer can
never reinstall community over Pro.
Note: internal/updates/pro_update.go and manager_pro_update_test.go for
this change landed one commit early inside 313552deb via a parallel
session committing a shared staged index; this commit completes the
wiring they belong to.
Back-port the pulse-auto-update.sh half of v5 fix 0f2982ce3 to v6. After a
verified update, if Pulse was running beforehand, wait_for_service_active
polls up to 20s, tries one explicit start, and if it still does not come
back up restores the backup binary/VERSION, restarts, and returns failure
instead of leaving Pulse stopped (common on unprivileged LXC where the
installer's restart silently fails). Adds a BASH_SOURCE guard so the
script can be sourced, plus scripts/tests/test-pulse-auto-update.sh.
Note: the install.sh start_pulse STOPPED_PULSE_SERVICE guard (interactive
installer path) still needs the stop-tracking infrastructure wired into
v6's update flow; tracked as a follow-up.
Refuse prerelease-shaped tags and explicit GitHub prerelease responses in the unattended stable updater before installer invocation.
Add installability tests and proof routing for the auto-update prerelease refusal guard.
The auto-update flow stops the Pulse service before applying updates.
If the update fails, the rollback path restored files but never
restarted the service. Since the main unit was explicitly stopped
(not crashed), systemd's Restart=always didn't rescue it.
Add restart-on-failure guards to both pulse-auto-update.sh and
install.sh so Pulse is always restarted after a failed update attempt.
Scripts like install.sh and install-sensor-proxy.sh are now attached
as release assets and downloaded from releases/latest/download/ URLs.
This ensures users always get scripts compatible with their installed
version, even while development continues on main.
Changes:
- build-release.sh: copy install scripts to release directory
- create-release.yml: upload scripts as release assets
- Updated all documentation and code references to use release URLs
- Scripts reference each other via release URLs for consistency
- Remove confusing --main flag, use --source for clarity
- Fix timeout issues when building from source in LXC containers
- Increase timeout from 5min to 20min for source builds
- Add PULSE_CONTAINER_TIMEOUT env var for custom timeouts
- Support PULSE_CONTAINER_TIMEOUT=0 to disable timeout
- Fix misleading "Latest version: vX.X.X" message during source builds
- Update documentation to use --source instead of --main
- Simplify auto-update script logic for source builds
Changes:
- install.sh: Check BUILD_FROM_SOURCE early to skip version detection
- install.sh: Adaptive timeout (300s binary, 1200s source builds)
- install.sh: Better timeout error messages with recovery instructions
- README.md: Replace --main with --source in examples
- docs/INSTALL.md: Replace --main with --source in examples
- scripts/pulse-auto-update.sh: Remove --main special case
rcourtman