Keyboard shortcuts

Press ← or → to navigate between chapters

Press S or / to search in the book

Press ? to show this help

Press Esc to hide this help

telebugs command reference

Install and manage your Telebugs instance.

To run the telebugs command, connect to your server using SSH or your cloud provider’s web-based terminal.

Fresh-server recovery bootstrap

Install only the CLI on a fresh replacement server:

bash -c "$(curl --disable -fsSL https://license.telebugs.com/restore)"

The public bootstrap verifies a platform-specific SHA-256 checksum and installs /usr/local/bin/telebugs. It does not run setup, create configuration, install Docker, start Telebugs, receive a backup, or restore data.

Do not run telebugs setup on a replacement server. Copy the archive over, run telebugs data verify, and then sudo telebugs data restore. Restore always uses the licensed domain stored in the archive; it has no domain override.

Usage

  • telebugs — Displays the main menu with available commands.

Manage passwords

  • password — Manage passwords.

Manage automatic updates

  • auto-update — Manage automatic updates.

Manage application data

  • data backup [filename] — Stop a running instance, validate all persistent data, and create a complete verified backup. The default filename is a UTC timestamp. Existing files are never overwritten; plan a maintenance window when the stored data is large.
  • data verify <filename> — Verify a backup manifest and creation timestamp, configuration checksum, and every archived file without changing Telebugs.
    • Format-2 backups verify their signed domain receipt offline.
    • Format-1 backups require online exact-domain authorization from auth.telebugs.com. Verification does not rewrite the archive or persist the replacement receipt; a successful restore does. Invalid format-2 receipts are never reissued.
  • data restore <filename> — Verify and stage a backup, then restore it with the captured immutable application image. Existing storage and configuration are retained; a failed switch is rolled back automatically.
    • The manifest, recovery configuration, receipt, and any existing installation must agree on product, installation token, and exact licensed domain before Docker or storage is changed.
    • Fresh-host restore uses /var/telebugs, archived recovery secrets, archived registry identity, and the captured image digest. Registry access is still required if that exact image is not available locally.
    • A completed replacement restore is failed back by returning DNS to the retained previous server. If the replacement accepted activity that must be kept, create a fresh backup there and restore it onto the previous server before moving DNS. Telebugs does not merge two installations.
    • Restore sends only sanitized, best-effort lifecycle status with a fixed failure stage and rollback outcome. Telemetry failure never changes restore.
    • A captured image that predates /ready may fall back to /up; the CLI prints a warning instead of silently weakening the check.
    • --yes skips the replacement prompt. Use it only when automation has independently confirmed the target installation.

See Backup and Restore before relying on an archive.

Manage versions (previews, pins, and rollbacks)

  • update — Update Telebugs to the latest version (or a specific tag with --tag / -t).
    • Use telebugs update --tag rest-api-preview-20250610-abc1234 to try a private preview build on your instance.
    • The previous running image is tagged locally as :previous for safety.
    • Updates do not automatically create a data backup. The command warns before changing the application image.
  • rollback — Roll back to the image that was running before the last update (uses the local :previous tag).
    • Image rollback does not reverse database migrations or restore data.

Additional commands

  • help — Displays help information for the telebugs command.
  • setup — Runs the initial setup process for a new Telebugs installation. Do not use it to prepare a replacement server for data restore.
  • start — Start Telebugs.
  • stop — Stop Telebugs.
  • status — Checks the container, /up, /ready, local databases, storage, migrations, critical workers, queue latency, and notification failure warning.
    • --json prints the detailed local result for scripts.

Flags

  • -h, --help — Displays help information for the telebugs command.

Use telebugs [command] --help to see detailed help for a specific command.