Migrate to the new Docker stack

Starting with v4.10, Rallly Self-Hosted ships as a managed Docker Compose stack with an installer, the Rallly CLI (rallly.sh), bundled reverse proxy (Traefik), and bundled object storage (Garage). If you set up Rallly before v4.10 — with a hand-edited docker-compose.yml, your own reverse proxy, or a config.env file — this guide walks you through the upgrade.

This guide assumes you will tear down the old stack and run the new stack on the same server. Read every step before starting. A database backup is mandatory.

Before you begin

You have root (or sudo) access to the server.
You have a recent, tested database backup stored off the server.
Your DNS A record for the domain points at this server’s IP. Traefik will request a fresh Let’s Encrypt certificate on first boot.

Step 1 — Save your secrets

Open your existing .env or config.env. Copy these values somewhere safe — you’ll paste them into the new stack’s .env:

Value	Notes
`SECRET_PASSWORD`	Critical. Must carry over. Encrypts sessions; if it changes, all existing sessions are invalidated.
`SUPPORT_EMAIL`
`NOREPLY_EMAIL`	If set.
`SMTP_HOST`, `SMTP_PORT`, `SMTP_SECURE`, `SMTP_USER`, `SMTP_PWD`	All SMTP config.
`ALLOWED_EMAILS`	If set.
`INITIAL_ADMIN_EMAIL`	If set.
`OIDC_`, `GOOGLE_`, `MICROSOFT_*`	Any SSO credentials you use.

Your domain (previously in NEXT_PUBLIC_BASE_URL) becomes DOMAIN in the new stack — without the scheme or trailing slash. For example https://rallly.example.com → rallly.example.com.

Step 2 — Back up the database

From your existing stack directory, with the old stack running:

docker compose exec -T rallly_db pg_dump -U postgres rallly | gzip > rallly-backup.sql.gz

Copy rallly-backup.sql.gz off the server (e.g. scp to your laptop). Do not skip this.

rallly_db is the Postgres service name in the official legacy docker-compose.yml. If you renamed it or authored your own compose file, replace it with whatever yours is called (run docker compose ps to check).

Step 3 — Stop the old stack

From the old stack directory:

docker compose down

If you were running an external reverse proxy (Nginx, Caddy, Apache) in front of Rallly, stop and disable it now — Traefik needs ports 80 and 443.

# Examples, adjust to your setup
sudo systemctl stop nginx && sudo systemctl disable nginx
sudo systemctl stop caddy && sudo systemctl disable caddy

Verify the ports are free:

sudo ss -tlnp | grep -E ':(80|443)\b'

Should return nothing.

Step 4 — Install the new stack

curl -fsSL https://get.rallly.co | bash

When prompted, use the same DOMAIN as before. For SUPPORT_EMAIL, SMTP settings, etc., paste in the values you saved in Step 1. After setup completes, do not start the stack yet. Edit /opt/rallly/.env and:

Replace the freshly-generated SECRET_PASSWORD with the value from your old .env.
Add any SSO variables (OIDC_*, GOOGLE_*, MICROSOFT_*) that the interactive setup didn’t cover.

See the full configuration reference.

Step 5 — Start the stack and restore the database

cd /opt/rallly
./rallly.sh start

Wait for the database to finish initialising (about 10 seconds). Check with:

./rallly.sh logs db

Once you see database system is ready to accept connections, restore your backup:

# Stop the app so it releases its connections to the rallly database
docker compose stop web

# Drop the freshly-migrated empty database and recreate it — connect to "postgres" to drop "rallly"
docker compose exec -T db psql -U postgres -d postgres -c "DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS rallly;"
docker compose exec -T db psql -U postgres -d postgres -c "CREATE DATABASE rallly;"

# Restore — ON_ERROR_STOP=1 fails fast on the first error instead of continuing silently
gunzip < /path/to/rallly-backup.sql.gz | docker compose exec -T db psql -v ON_ERROR_STOP=1 -U postgres rallly

Start the app so it picks up the restored schema:

./rallly.sh start

Step 6 — Verify

Visit https://<your-domain>. You should see the sign-in page served over HTTPS (Traefik’s Let’s Encrypt certificate will be issued within a minute of first boot).
Sign in with an existing account. If SECRET_PASSWORD was preserved correctly, your previous session may even still be valid.
Open an existing poll and confirm votes are intact.
Send a test sign-in email to confirm SMTP works.
If you use SSO, sign in through each configured provider.

If anything is missing or broken, do not delete the old stack’s volumes yet. You can roll back by stopping the new stack and restarting the old one.

Step 7 — Clean up

Once you’re satisfied the new stack is working:

# Remove the old stack directory
rm -rf /path/to/old/rallly-selfhosted

# Remove orphaned Docker volumes from the old stack
docker volume ls
docker volume rm <old-volume-name>

Double-check volume names before removing. The new stack’s volumes are prefixed with its Docker Compose project name, so confirm the prefix before deleting anything. The project name comes from COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME, an explicit name: in docker-compose.yml, or the directory the compose file lives in. From inside the new stack’s directory, run docker compose config --format json | jq -r .name to print it, or docker compose ls to list running projects and their volumes.

What doesn’t carry over

TLS certificates. Traefik issues fresh certificates via Let’s Encrypt on first start. Any existing certs (from certbot or your old proxy) are not imported.
Custom docker-compose.yml changes. The new stack is managed; edits will conflict with ./rallly.sh update. Configure via .env only.
Uploaded files from an external S3 bucket. The new stack ships with Garage for uploads. If you were previously using external S3, either keep pointing at it (advanced, see External object storage) or accept that previously uploaded files will not appear in the new Garage instance.

Moving to a different server

If you’re migrating to a new server rather than upgrading in place, the flow is the same, with one change: complete Step 4 (install new stack) on the new server, then update your DNS A record to point at it before Step 5. Keep the old server running until Step 6 verification passes, which gives you a rollback path.

Get Started

Advanced

Guides

Misc

Migrate to the new Docker stack

Before you begin

Step 1 — Save your secrets

Step 2 — Back up the database

Step 3 — Stop the old stack

Step 4 — Install the new stack

Step 5 — Start the stack and restore the database

Step 6 — Verify

Step 7 — Clean up

What doesn’t carry over

Moving to a different server

​Before you begin

​Step 1 — Save your secrets

​Step 2 — Back up the database

​Step 3 — Stop the old stack

​Step 4 — Install the new stack

​Step 5 — Start the stack and restore the database

​Step 6 — Verify

​Step 7 — Clean up

​What doesn’t carry over

​Moving to a different server

Before you begin

Step 1 — Save your secrets

Step 2 — Back up the database

Step 3 — Stop the old stack

Step 4 — Install the new stack

Step 5 — Start the stack and restore the database

Step 6 — Verify

Step 7 — Clean up

What doesn’t carry over

Moving to a different server