Migration

To support database format changes, rCTF uses migrations to update the postgreSQL structure.

The initial database structure also relies on migrations. Therefore, if automatic migrations aren't enabled, you must run manual migrations before rCTF starts up for the first time.

Automatic migrations

If you want migrations to be run automatically at server startup, set database.migrate or RCTF_DATABASE_MIGRATE to before.

database:
  migrate: before

Automatic migrations incur a startup cost, which can be significant if running at scale. Therefore, for large deployments, manual migrations should be used.

Manual migrations

If you want to disable automatic migrations, set database.migrate or RCTF_DATABASE_MIGRATE to never.

database:
  migrate: never

Then, when you need to run migrations, run:

yarn migrate

Alternatively, you can set database.migrate or RCTF_DATABASE_MIGRATE to only and run rCTF. rCTF will exit when migrations are complete.