How update is being done in Cardano

This document briefly explains how the update is being done in Cardano. This process was decided on the assumption that it will work as long as the user's computer is not compromised.

Daedalus CI creates installer file

The installers are being built by CI for Daedalus. They are available under the sections for:

• Darwin
• Linux-nix
• Windows-nix

There will be artifacts, that contain the installers for each cluster (mainnet, staging, testnet).

DevOps propose update on blockchain

When the update is ready, the DevOps will upload the installer file and use Cardano blockchain to propose an update. This is done by accessing the core nodes and using auxx to submit special messages on a blockchain. The effect will take in 12 hours.

Node signals Daedalus that the update is available

When an update proposal is put into the chain, the hashes for the installers are put into the blockchain and cardano-node will download the right installer for the current platform (based on the configuration). The node will then signal to daedalus that an update is pending.

Node runs the updater.

Daedalus can let the launcher know that the they are ready to perform an update by exiting with code 20.

How the update is being done depends on the operating system the node is running on.

Darwin

On Darwin, the update is being done by running daedalus.pkg file. Launcher will run /usr/bin/open -FW Installer.pkg and relaunch itself once the installation is complete.

Linux

On Linux, the update is being done by running bash script installer.sh. The location of the script is based on the configuration (Usually, its located under bin/update-runner). The script will take care of the installation an re-launch the wallet once everything is done.

Windows

On Windows, you cannot perform write on an executable that is running. Because of this, we must fully stop the launcher before running the installer and instead of launcher executing the installer, we'll be using batch file Installer.bat which will run the updater Installer.exe and re-launch the launcher. The file will be created by the launcher.