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Upgrading Passenger

Relevant selection for this article:

How to upgrade Passenger + Nginx depends on how Passenger was installed. Please select the option most relevant to you.

Table of contents

Please select the relevant Passenger edition

Passenger open source

Passenger Enterprise

macOS (Homebrew)

If Passenger was installed on macOS through Homebrew, then you can upgrade Passenger as follows:

brew upgrade passenger nginx

Debian packages (Debian, Ubuntu)

In July 2017, the Ubuntu 17.04 Zesty packages for Passenger were changed from a static to a dynamic module package. If you have the old package, please remove it and install the new package with the system Nginx:

sudo apt-get remove nginx-extras (if that fails, use: sudo dpkg --remove --force-remove-reinstreq nginx-extras)
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y libnginx-mod-http-passenger nginx

If Passenger was installed through the Phusion Passenger APT repository, then you can upgrade Passenger along with Nginx through APT using the following command:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Don't see any updates?

If you don't see any updates, then there are two possible reasons:

Our Debian packages haven't been released yet. When we release a new version of Passenger, it typically takes 1-2 hours for our server to build Debian packages.
If you are using a non-Long Term Support version of Ubuntu, then it is possible that we have dropped support for that Ubuntu version.

RPM packages (Enterprise Linux)

In June 2023, the Enterprise Linux 8 & 9 packages for Passenger were changed from building against the default system Nginx module package to the newest system Nginx module package. If you have the old module enabled, please remove it and enable the new module package:

sudo yum remove nginx
sudo yum module reset nginx
sudo yum module enable -y nginx:$(sudo yum module list nginx | cut -d ' ' -f 2 | grep -Ee '^[0-9\.]+$' | sort -V | tail -1)
sudo yum install -y nginx-mod-http-passenger

In May 2020, the CentOS 7 / RHEL 7 packages for Passenger were changed from a static to a dynamic module package. If you have the old package, please remove it and install the new package with the system or EPEL Nginx:

sudo yum remove nginx*
sudo yum update && sudo yum install -y nginx-mod-http-passenger nginx

If Passenger was installed through the Phusion Passenger YUM repository, then you can upgrade Passenger along with Nginx through YUM using the following command:

sudo yum update

Don't see any updates?

If you don't see any updates, then maybe our RPM packages haven't been released yet. When we release a new version of Passenger, it typically takes 2-3 hours for our server to build RPM packages.

Heroku

If you are using Passenger on Heroku, then update the passenger gem by running:

bundle update passenger

Then commit and push to Heroku:

git commit -a -m "Upgrade Passenger to latest version"
git push heroku master

Docker

Please refer to the passenger-docker website for upgrade instructions.

Source tarball

If Passenger was installed through a source tarball, then please follow the source tarball upgrade guide.

RubyGems

If Passenger was installed through RubyGems, then upgrading Passenger involves going through the normal installation process again. Please follow the installation guide that is most relevant to you:

Please ignore the warning there that tells you that the guide is not for updates.

Be sure to install Nginx into the same prefix that you previously installed Nginx to.

When done, please don't forget to update the Nginx configuration snippet that the installer tells you about at the end.

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