Offline Updates

Chinaski releases are handled as artifacts that travel on removable media inside air-gapped environments: a signed bundle, its signature, and your release public key.

The documented workflow

1. On a connected machine: get the newest release bundle (a tar.gz) plus its .sig signature file from the release location. Signatures are hex-encoded Ed25519 signatures of the bundle's raw bytes, produced by the release signing tool against a release key.
2. Transfer both files to the air-gapped machine (USB, one-way copy, whatever your transfer discipline is).
3. Run the update script:

bash scripts/apply_update.sh \
    --bundle  chinaski-<version>.tar.gz \
    --sig     chinaski-<version>.tar.gz.sig \
    --pubkey  keys/chinaski_release.pub \
    [--prefix /opt/chinaski]

The script verifies the Ed25519 signature first (tampered bundles are rejected outright), backs up the current application, then applies the update, keeping the previous version recoverable if something goes wrong afterward.

The on-line variant: never automatic

The application has an update-check capability, but it only ever consults a manifest URL you set explicitly (via the CHINASKI_UPDATE_MANIFEST_URL environment variable) and only when air-gap mode is off. Nothing "phones home" for updates without both being configured. Manifest signatures are verified against the release public key when a key is available.

In-operation notes

• Signature verification is mandatory in the update path, not just a recommendation.
• The release public key the updater uses by default is keys/chinaski_release.pub in the installation; keep it safe and updated alongside future bundles when the project announces the new keys.
• Bundles are founded on the same make-bundle machinery used for first installing offline; the bundle carries the CPAN tarballs, so updating to a newer release works without network access as well.
• Before applying an update on a live system, keep a current backup and note the apply script backs up the previous application automatically; the moment to apply is maintenance window, as with any CMS.