---
title: "Releases, Packages, and Upgrades"
linkTitle: "Releases & Upgrades"
weight: 80
description: "Stable branches, release sources, version identification, maintenance, and upgrades"
icon: fa-solid fa-code-branch
module: [HAPROXY]
categories: [Task]
aliases:
  - /haproxy/intro/releases-and-upgrades/
  - /docs/haproxy/intro/releases-and-upgrades/
  - /haproxy/releases-and-upgrades/
upstream_link: "https://docs.haproxy.org/3.4/intro.html"
upstream_name: "HAProxy 3.4 Starter Guide"
upstream_ref: "v3.4.4, chapter 3.7"
---

<!-- Generated by scripts/generate-haproxy-docs.py from pinned upstream text. -->

HAProxy is an open source project covered by the GPLv2 license, meaning that everyone is allowed to
redistribute it provided that access to the sources is also provided upon request, especially if any
modifications were made.

HAProxy evolves as a main development branch called "master" or "mainline", from which new branches
are derived once the code is considered stable. A lot of web sites run some development branches in
production on a voluntarily basis, either to participate to the project or because they need a
bleeding edge feature, and their feedback is highly valuable to fix bugs and judge the overall
quality and stability of the version being developed.

The new branches that are created when the code is stable enough constitute a stable version and are
generally maintained for several years, so that there is no emergency to migrate to a newer branch
even when you're not on the latest. Once a stable branch is issued, it may only receive bug fixes,
and very rarely minor feature updates when that makes users' life easier. All fixes that go into a
stable branch necessarily come from the master branch. This guarantees that no fix will be lost
after an upgrade. For this reason, if you fix a bug, please make the patch against the master
branch, not the stable branch. You may even discover it was already fixed. This process also ensures
that regressions in a stable branch are extremely rare, so there is never any excuse for not
upgrading to the latest version in your current branch.

Branches are numbered with two digits delimited with a dot, such as "1.6". Since 1.9, branches with
an odd second digit are mostly focused on sensitive technical updates and more aimed at advanced
users because they are likely to trigger more bugs than the other ones. They are maintained for
about a year only and must not be deployed where they cannot be rolled back in emergency. A complete
version includes one or two sub-version numbers indicating the level of fix. For example, version
1.5.14 is the 14th fix release in branch 1.5 after version 1.5.0 was issued. It contains 126 fixes
for individual bugs, 24 updates on the documentation, and 75 other backported patches, most of which
were needed to fix the aforementioned 126 bugs. An existing feature may never be modified nor
removed in a stable branch, in order to guarantee that upgrades within the same branch will always
be harmless.

HAProxy is available from multiple sources, at different release rhythms:

- The official community web site: <http://www.haproxy.org/>: this site provides the sources of the
  latest development release, all stable releases, as well as nightly snapshots for each branch. The
  release cycle is not fast, several months between stable releases, or between development
  snapshots. Very old versions are still supported there. Everything is provided as sources only, so
  whatever comes from there needs to be rebuilt and/or repackaged;

- GitHub: <https://github.com/haproxy/haproxy/>: this is the mirror for the development branch only,
  which provides integration with the issue tracker, continuous integration and code coverage tools.
  This is exclusively for contributors;

- A number of operating systems such as Linux distributions and BSD ports. These systems generally
  provide long-term maintained versions which do not always contain all the fixes from the official
  ones, but which at least contain the critical fixes. It often is a good option for most users who
  do not seek advanced configurations and just want to keep updates easy;

- Commercial versions from <http://www.haproxy.com/>: these are supported professional packages
  built for various operating systems or provided as appliances, based on the latest stable versions
  and including a number of features backported from the next release for which there is a strong
  demand. It is the best option for users seeking the latest features with the reliability of a
  stable branch, the fastest response time to fix bugs, or simply support contracts on top of an
  open source product;

In order to ensure that the version you're using is the latest one in your branch, you need to
proceed this way:

- verify which HAProxy executable you're running: some systems ship it by default and administrators
  install their versions somewhere else on the system, so it is important to verify in the startup
  scripts which one is used;

- determine which source your HAProxy version comes from. For this, it's generally sufficient to
  type "haproxy -v". A development version will appear like this, with the "dev" word after the
  branch number:

```text
HAProxy version 2.4-dev18-a5357c-137 2021/05/09 - https://haproxy.org/
```

    A stable version will appear like this, as well as unmodified stable

versions provided by operating system vendors:

```text
HAProxy version 1.5.14 2015/07/02
```

    And a nightly snapshot of a stable version will appear like this with an
    hexadecimal sequence after the version, and with the date of the snapshot

instead of the date of the release:

```text
HAProxy version 1.5.14-e4766ba 2015/07/29
```

    Any other format may indicate a system-specific package with its own
    patch set. For example HAProxy Enterprise versions will appear with the

following format (`<branch>`-`<latest commit>`-`<revision>`):

```text
HAProxy version 1.5.0-994126-357 2015/07/02
```

    Please note that historically versions prior to 2.4 used to report the
    process name with a hyphen between "HA" and "Proxy", including those above
    which were adjusted to show the correct format only, so better ignore this
    word or use a relaxed match in scripts. Additionally, modern versions add
    a URL linking to the project's home.

    Finally, versions 2.1 and above will include a "Status" line indicating
    whether the version is safe for production or not, and if so, till when, as
    well as a link to the list of known bugs affecting this version.

- for system-specific packages, you have to check with your vendor's package repository or update
  system to ensure that your system is still supported, and that fixes are still provided for your
  branch. For community versions coming from haproxy.org, just visit the site, verify the status of
  your branch and compare the latest version with yours to see if you're on the latest one. If not
  you can upgrade. If your branch is not maintained anymore, you're definitely very late and will
  have to consider an upgrade to a more recent branch (carefully read the README when doing so).

HAProxy will have to be updated according to the source it came from. Usually it follows the system
vendor's way of upgrading a package. If it was taken from sources, please read the README file in
the sources directory after extracting the sources and follow the instructions for your operating
system.