Auto Updates

A formal explanation and in-depth understanding of all of the events that occur when Carbon self-updates.

...
  "Analytics": {
    "Enabled": true
  },
  "SelfUpdating": { 
    "Enabled": true, 
    "HookUpdates": true, 
    "RedirectUri": null
  }, 
  "Debugging": {
    "ScriptDebuggingOrigin": "",
    "HookLagSpikeThreshold": 1000
  }
...

Update Schedule

We release production updates usually twice a month on the stable builds (Carbon production build for the public Rust branch), with follow-up hotfix patches when applicable.

We release the production build for the Rust wipe update 1 hour before the actual Rust server update drops, using the release branch to build against (it's the build that gets merged to public on the clock).

Our other beta builds get updated accordingly to Facepunch's progression in the development of said branches. For example, staging branch only begins to have significant changes necessary for Carbon to update to, roughly mid-month.

Self Updating

When does the self-updating actually happen? It's entirely relative to the version you're actively running.

Production

If you're running the stable version of the game (public branch) alongside the production stable Carbon build and there is a major protocol change for Carbon (eg. Rust wipe day), Carbon only self updates if you update to the latest Rust version.

Staging (Betas)

If you're running Rust staging branch, along the Carbon staging beta build and we release an update for that Staging beta build, your next restart will automatically update to it regardless of protocol.

What's Happening

As soon as you start the Rust server with Carbon installed, here's what's happening:

1. First and foremost before any Rust assemblies are loaded, we're downloading the version list from our servers and then compare the locally installed build.
2. If we determine that you are out of date, we're downloading the patch from GitHub for the exact same build type you're running for your operating system, then we unzip all core files in the Carbon directory, primarily the carbon/managed files.
3. After this, the publicisation step happens, where we publicise all relevant Rust assemblies and load those ones into memory for Unity to use, instead of the vanilla ones.
4. After all of that, the server boots up normally. The period of self updating is very, very brief, varying slightly relative to your server CPU and internet connection speed.

Hook Self-Updating

The hook updates happen after the self-updating process, actually when you start seeing logs of the server booting up, and before any extensions or plugins get loaded.

This is entirely tied to the Carbon protocol.