Your gateway runs on your machine. Nothing we do updates it: a new version waits until you install it. This page is the whole procedure, which is shorter than this sentence suggests.
The command
On the machine where the gateway is installed:
sms-gateway update
It fetches the latest published version, checks the files it downloaded against their published fingerprints, and restarts the gateway on the new version. It takes a few seconds.
To move to a particular version rather than the latest:
sms-gateway update 1.3.0
Running the original install command again has exactly the same effect.
What is kept
Everything. Your messages, contacts, conversations, campaigns, rules, short links, settings, user accounts and paired phones all live in your data folder, which the update never touches. Your phones stay paired: you do not pair them again.
Your licence is untouched too, and an update never asks for your key again.
Check that it worked
Open the dashboard. The version is at the bottom of the sidebar, and Settings > About shows it too. If your phones were sending before the update, they are sending after it: the queue is on disk and survives the restart.
If something goes wrong
The previous version is still on the machine. Go back to it by naming it:
sms-gateway update 1.2.0
Data written by a newer version is readable by the one before it: a version never breaks the one it replaces, precisely so that going back stays possible.
If the gateway does not come back at all, Settings > Backup and export on the previous version still has your backups, and Backup and restore explains how to use one.
The phones
Each version of the gateway ships with the version of the Android app it expects. After updating, Devices shows App update available on this phone under any phone still running the old app. Reinstall it from Devices > Add a phone: the QR code always points at the version your gateway now ships, and the pairing is kept.
A phone running an older app keeps sending and receiving in the meantime.
How you learn that a version came out
We email you at every new version, at the address of your customer account. The message carries the version number and the command above, and nothing else: updates to version 1 are included in your licence for life, so there is never anything to buy.
If you would rather not receive them, turn them off in your customer account, under Emails.