Railway template deploys before 1 October 2026: move your Postgres data onto the volume

[abhinavxd]

Moving your Railway Postgres data onto the volume

This applies only if you deployed libredesk with the Railway template.

The template had a typo in the Postgres volume mount path (a trailing space). Postgres kept its data on the container's own disk instead of the volume. Railway throws that disk away every time it redeploys the Postgres service, for example after you change the image, a variable or the mount path. The template was fixed on 1 October 2026. If you deployed before that date, your instance is affected until you follow the steps below.

Details on issue: #654

Warning

Until you have moved your data, do not redeploy the Postgres service, change its image or variables, or change its mount path. Any of these erases the database. Restarting it is safe.

Before you start

• Pick a quiet time. libredesk is offline for a few minutes during the move.
• The steps assume the default service names from the template, Postgres and libredesk.

Install the Railway CLI with one of:

brew install railway

npm i -g @railway/cli

Or download a binary from https://github.com/railwayapp/cli/releases.

Log in, link your project, and register your SSH key. When railway link asks, pick your libredesk project, the production environment, and the Postgres service.

railway login
railway link
railway ssh keys add

1. Check if you are affected

railway ssh --service Postgres -- df -h /var/lib/postgresql/data

This shows which disk holds your database. Look at the first word of the second line.

You are affected if it says overlay, which is the container's own disk. Continue with step 2.

Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
overlay                   2.9T      1.8T      1.1T  62% /

You are not affected if it starts with /dev/, which is the volume. You can stop here.

Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/zd20384              4.5G     67.0M      4.4G   1% /var/lib/postgresql/data

2. Stop libredesk

This stops libredesk so nothing is written to the database during the move.

railway down --service libredesk -y

3. Back up the database onto the volume

railway ssh --service Postgres -- sh -c 'pg_dump -U "$POSTGRES_USER" -Fc "$POSTGRES_DB" > "/var/lib/postgresql/data/pgdata /backup.dump" && ls -la "/var/lib/postgresql/data/pgdata /"'

The output must list backup.dump. Do not continue if it does not.

4. Fix the mount path

In the Railway dashboard, click the volume shown under the Postgres service, then open Settings. Change the Mount Path to:

/var/lib/postgresql/data

Leave the PGDATA variable as it is (/var/lib/postgresql/data/pgdata).

Click Deploy in the banner at the top of the project to apply the change, and wait until Postgres is running. Postgres starts with an empty database, which is expected.

5. Restore the backup

railway ssh --service Postgres -- sh -c 'pg_restore -U "$POSTGRES_USER" -d "$POSTGRES_DB" --clean --if-exists --no-owner /var/lib/postgresql/data/backup.dump && echo RESTORE OK'

The output must end with RESTORE OK.

6. Start libredesk

Railway starts a new libredesk deployment whenever one of its variables changes.

railway variables --set DATA_MOVED=1 --service libredesk

Wait until libredesk is running, then log in and check that your conversations and settings are there.

7. Confirm the fix

railway ssh --service Postgres -- sh -c 'df -h /var/lib/postgresql/data; psql -U "$POSTGRES_USER" -d "$POSTGRES_DB" -Atc "SHOW data_directory;"'

The first column should now show /dev/... and the data directory should be /var/lib/postgresql/data/pgdata.

8. Remove the backup file (optional)

The backup stays on the volume at /var/lib/postgresql/data/backup.dump and uses about as much space as your database. Once you have checked that your data is all there, you can delete it:

railway ssh --service Postgres -- rm /var/lib/postgresql/data/backup.dump