What is the difference between Restart and Redeploy?

[predragnikolic]

Hello 👋

What is the difference between the Restart and Redeploy buttons?
It looks like they do the same thing currently and that is to start a deployment.

When I first saw the restart button, I tought it stops the app process, and start it again. But that is not what the button actually do! It looks like it just triggers a deployment. And that is what the "redeploy" button also does.

So what is the difference and when should I use which button?

[franciscohanna92]

Confused by this also!

[henningsieh]

Wow, no answer in 6 month? Cool...

[oliverfrost1]

It would be great with a simple explainer tooltip over them. A thing I would like clarified is if a redeploy closes the server while the redeployment happens. Also, if the redeployment fails, will it keep my current instance running?

[srinisubramanian]

As far as I can make out a restart would just restart the container. A redeploy probably does a rebuild?

[nktnet1]

Yeah, not entirely clear in the docs, although there are hints in the source code.

Behaviour for swarm mode is also different, but for your regular deployment:

It appears that "redeploy" will rebuild the docker image, whereas "restart" won't.

We should add an entry to the FAQ (will do when I find time, but all welcome):

• https://coolify.io/docs/knowledge-base/faq
• https://github.com/coollabsio/documentation-coolify/tree/main/docs/knowledge-base/faq.md

[smeijer]

It appears that "redeploy" will rebuild the docker image, whereas "restart" won't.

That's not the behaviour I'm seeing. I still see docker rebuilds (using a build server) when simply pressing "restart".

[nktnet1]

Did you do either of the following?

1. Change configurations (potentially environment variables)
2. Prune docker (e.g. delete cache/images/volume/etc) - there is also automatic docker clean-up to look out for

If restarting without either of the above still results in a rebuild, you may want to report it as an issue with reproduction steps ^.

[arthureberledev]

Do you guys know if a redeploy will deploy the latest changes from a git repo? I have disabled the automatic builds on updates to the repo.

[nktnet1]

Yes - the latest commit in the branch you've set.

[ahmafi]

Restart is triggering a new deploy! I just change some ENV variables. Is this supposed to happen?

[smeijer]

Exactly what i just experienced. It's confusing, and not helpful (giving the long build time of this container)

[nktnet1]

Speculating, but possibly the problem here is that sometimes environment variables are used during the build stage of Docker (i.e. not just at run time). Since "restarting" will not apply such changes, Coolify opts for rebuilding the image altogether.

[feschaffa]

Also confused by this, restart is rebuilding the whole image 🤔

[djsisson]

restart will be set to false if its a docker image or dockerfile (no idea why) (also doesn't show if compose)

coolify/app/Jobs/ApplicationDeploymentJob.php

Line 197 in 723f14e

$this->restart_only = $this->restart_only && $this->application->build_pack !== 'dockerimage' && $this->application->build_pack !== 'dockerfile';

and same if anything in the configuration has changed, but that should be a given

coolify/app/Jobs/ApplicationDeploymentJob.php

Line 846 in 723f14e

if (! $this->application->isConfigurationChanged()) {