Install

renew isn’t on crates.io. Add it from git, pinned to a release tag, in the app’s Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
renew = { git = "https://github.com/gmrdad82/pito-renew", tag = "v2.0.0" }

The same line works on every platform renew supports:

• Linux x86_64: tested in CI on ubuntu.
• macOS on Apple Silicon: tested in CI on macos.
• Windows: through WSL, where it is Linux. The crate also builds for native Windows, where the swap parks the running binary as <exe>.old first; CI doesn’t run that path, so it is untested.

It needs Rust 1.97 or later and no system library: HTTPS is ureq with rustls.

Quick start

See it work with no network and nothing to set up, from a checkout:

git clone https://github.com/gmrdad82/pito-renew && cd pito-renew
cargo run --example demo

The demo makes a key pair, signs a manifest, serves the manifest, its signature and a binary from a local port, and updates an app at 1.0.0 in a temporary folder to 1.1.0:

running   app 1.0.0 on linux-x86_64
check     1.1.0 is out, 10 bytes
install   ✓ the sha256 matches, swapped in place
on disk   app 1.1.0
leftover  none

--tampered, --forged and --major show the refusals and a new major: see What it refuses and Ship a new major version.

In an app

At start-up, or when the user asks to check for updates:

const MANIFEST_URL: &str = "https://example.com/app/manifest.json";
const RELEASE_KEY: &str = "RWQ…";

fn update() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    let exe = std::env::current_exe()?;
    renew::clean_old_binary(&exe);
    let check = renew::check(MANIFEST_URL, RELEASE_KEY, env!("CARGO_PKG_VERSION"))?;
    if let Some(update) = check.update {
        renew::install(&update.binary, &exe)?;
        renew::restart(&exe)?;
        std::process::exit(0);
    }
    Ok(())
}

Add self-update to an app walks through each call, and Sign and publish a release makes the manifest and the key it checks against.