electron-update-host

Stores a built Electron app and serves it through an update channel 🗂🔄

Why? Isn't there Hazel already? Of course! And if you have the chance, go for it!

But you might also be in the situation, that you don't have the needed code certificates, wich would enable you to roll with Electrons autoUpdater implementation 😅

In that case, you would need to serve your App updates yourself somehow. The following tools make it quite easy for you:

• electron-update-host - Stores your built Electron app and serves it through an update channel.
• electron-update-host-adapter - Drop in replacement for Electron autoUpdater, which makes it a breeze to connect your app to your electron-update-host instance.
• electron-release-uploader - CLI tool, that helps you uploading your latest app build to your electron-update-host instance.

Installation

This project is based on the PHP Lumen framework. You need at least PHP v7.1.3 to run this app. Check Lumens requirements for more details.

Installation Quick Guide:

• Clone / Download latest build of electron-update-host
• Run composer install to install all dependencies
• Configure your .env file (see Configuration hints below)
• Upload everything to your webspace
• Point the webroot of your domain into the /public folder
• Make sure your .htaccess file within /public works (mod_rewrite needs to be enabled)
• PHP needs write access to the directories /app-updates and /storage

Configuration

Besides the standard .env configuration you should secure your upload enpoint by defining a password header.

You can define these password settings in your .env file. Have a look at the example below:

UPLOAD_PASSWORD_HEADER=X-Password-Header
UPLOAD_PASSWORD=SuperSavePassword

For now on, a header with the name X-Password-Header and the value SuperSavePassword needs to be set for POST/update/{version} requests. A status 401 - Unauthorized is beeing thrown otherwise.

If you don't set the .env password settings, every upload will be accepted 🔥

API Endpoints

Below a brief explenation of the available endpoints.

POST /update/{version}

Requires a password header, if configured. Accepts multipart/form-data file upload. The file param should be named app-update and contain your tar'ed Electron app build. The url parameter {version} needs to be in a format like 1-0-0 and not like 1.0.0.

GET /update/{platform}/latest

Triggers download of latest Electron app build for requested platform. Supported platforms are mentioned here in the node os.platform() documentation.

GET /check-update/{platform}/{version}

Evaluates if there is an available update for the requested version and platform. If there is one, a object like this is returned:

{
  "releaseNotes": "",
  "releaseName": "1.8.3",
  "releaseDate": 1527686593,
  "updateURL": "http://<your-electron-update-host>.com/update/mac/latest"
}

If there is no update available, HTTP status 204 - No Content is beeing returned.

Supported platforms are mentioned here in the node os.platform() documentation. The url parameter {version} needs to be in a format like 1-0-0 and not like 1.0.0.