Roll back a deployment

If a failure occurs during the deployment of a version, that deployment is automatically rolled back from the point of failure. From the Jobs screen, you can manually roll back any version that you have deployed.

Regardless of whether a rollback operation is initiated automatically or manually, the process and outcome is the same.

A rollback operation removes the components in the reverse order in which they were deployed and restores the pertinent files, directories, or policies to their previous state. The rollback instructions are specified when the component is defined. If rollback is disabled for a component, that component is not rolled back.

Rollback behavior by component type

Component Type	Rollback Behavior
Code	Execute the OS-specific rollback and restore scripts maintained by your Application Deployment administrator (see Administer Application Deployment).
Script	Execute the rollback script, if one is specified in the component.
Configuration File	Execute the OS-specific restore script maintained by your Application Deployment administrator.
Application Configuration	Remove the Application Configuration from the server, and restore the original file (if one was saved).
Software Policy	Detach the Policy from the server, restore the related existing policy (if any), and remediate.
Package	If the deploy method is Policy, detach and remediate the policy containing the packages, and attach and remediate the related policy (if any). If the deploy method is Package, remove the packages, and install any related packages (if any).
OO Flow	Initiate the specified OO Rollback Flow (if one was specified).
DMA Flow	Execute the specified DMA Flow (if one was specified).
Windows Registry	Execute the Windows-specific rollback script maintained by your Application Deployment administrator.

A rollback operation returns the server to the state that it was in prior to the deployment.

The standard Rollback scripts maintain only one backup version for each release—they remove any existing backup files in order to conserve disk space on the target server. This means that if you roll back a version that is older than the most recently deployed version, Application Deployment will not be able to restore the code files. If you attempt to roll back a previous version, Application Deployment displays a warning message. You can then either confirm or cancel the rollback.

To manually rollback a deployment:

1. Go to the Jobs screen (click Jobs in the lower left corner).
2. In the Jobs Log table, select the row corresponding to the deployment that you want to roll back.
3. Click Rollback.
   The Rollback Job dialog opens.
4. Click Yes. A rollback job is created and started.

It is possible that there is nothing to roll back, because the only components that executed did not have rollback enabled. If this is the case, you will see a warning message.