update action

The update process

The exegol wrapper has an update action dedicated to updating the different modules (wrapper, resources, etc.) of the project as well as the (docker) Exegol images.

Modules updates

This action make sure the local copies of the following repositories are up to date:

• Exegol (wrapper code). A wrapper installed with a package manager has no checkout to pull and cannot self-update: upgrade it the same way it was installed, with pipx upgrade exegol or uv tool upgrade exegol.
• Exegol-images (docker building files)
• Exegol-resources (offline resources, exegol-resources). This module is optional, and users can choose to install/update it at any time.

TIP

When running exegol update -v, the user will be able to choose from what branch the module should be synchronized with, allowing to switch easily between release and dev versions.

Images updates

Once the local code base is updated, the wrapper compares the installed Exegol images with those offered on the registry. If no parameters have been provided at command-line, an interactive selection will be possible to choose the images to update (if updates are available).

Hint

Older versions of images will be automatically deleted if they are no longer used by any container and if a newer version of the same image is installed. This automatic deletion behavior is a default configuration that can be modified in the configuration file if needed, but it's advised not to change it as disk space is not unlimited and Exegol image can take up to 50GB.

Collaboration sources Pro Team Enterprise

Container profile

This action also refreshes the container profile sources declared in the configuration file:

• A source declared with git is cloned on its first update, and pulled on every later one, into a directory named after its source key under the profile component path.
• A source declared with a filesystem path is scanned where it sits. It is never cloned and never removed.
• A source directory whose entry has been removed from the configuration is deleted at the next update. This pruning step deliberately spares the local drop-in source even when its entry is absent from the map, and it also refuses to remove a directory that is not a re-clonable checkout: a stale directory left behind is recoverable, whereas the only copy of a hand-written profile is not.

IMPORTANT

A newly declared git source needs one exegol update run before its profiles appear in the listing or in the interactive picker.

Fetching git sources requires an Enterprise licence. Below that tier the step is a complete no-op: nothing is fetched and nothing is pruned, so an already-cloned tree is left exactly where it is and goes stale rather than being deleted.

NOTE

exegol update is the only unprompted refresh of the container profile sources, and the only operation that prunes them. It is not the only way one is ever fetched: a command that reads profiles and finds a declared git source with no directory on disk offers a prompted fetch, and that offered fetch clones without removing anything.

For more details about container profiles, see the Container profiles documentation.

Sentinel profile EnterpriseAdd-on

This action is also the sole fetch entrypoint for the Sentinel audit profile sources. Nothing else clones or pulls them: not container creation, not a restart, not exegol start -S. The step provisions the official core source, clones or pulls each declared git source to its configured ref, and prunes the directories of git sources that are no longer declared. It is a no-op when the session is not licensed for the Sentinel feature, and it refuses to run in offline mode.

For more details, see Sources and updates.

Options

The options of the update action are the following.

Option	Description
-w, --wrapper	Update the Exegol wrapper itself.
-r, --resources	Update the Exegol resources shared with every container.
-P, --profiles	Update the container profile sources configured on this host.
-S, --sentinel	Update the Sentinel audit profile sources configured on this host.
-i [IMAGE], --images [IMAGE]	Update an Exegol image: supplying no value opens the interactive selection described in Images updates, supplying a tag updates that image without prompting.

The selectors combine: naming several of them restricts the run to exactly those targets, and naming none updates everything.

Command examples

# Update everything (wrapper, resources, Sentinel sources, profile sources, image):
exegol update

# Update an exegol image, interactively:
exegol update -i

# Update the full image:
exegol update -i full

# Update the container profile and Sentinel sources together:
exegol update -P -S

# Update the exegol wrapper and have the option to change branch, without updating any docker image:
exegol update -v --wrapper