# Kong reload usage

**URL:** <https://discuss.konghq.com/t/kong-reload-usage/6275>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [May 11, 2020, 8:26pm UTC](https://discuss.konghq.com/t/kong-reload-usage/6275 "2020-05-11T20:26:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Matt\_Burton](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discuss.konghq.com/matt_burton/32/1934_2.png) [@Matt\_Burton](https://discuss.konghq.com/u/Matt_Burton)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2020, 8:26pm UTC](https://discuss.konghq.com/t/kong-reload-usage/6275/1 "2020-05-11T20:26:01Z")

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Having some difficulty getting `kong reload` to work - wondering if anyone had any pointers. Based on the help it seems like this should work:

`sudo kong reload -c /etc/kong/kong.conf -p /usr/local/kong/`

I’m attempting to set `router_update_frequency` and reload Kong but it doesn’t seem to take - the only way I can get it to take hold is by doing a hard restart, i.e. `sudo systemctl restart kong` which causes requests to fail unfortunately. I tried various permutations, with and without the prefix / config files specified, in the Kong directory and not, and so on.

Any help would be most appreciated - thanks!  
Matt

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**Author:** ![raleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cab0a1/32.png) [@raleman](https://discuss.konghq.com/u/raleman)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2020, 9:57pm UTC](https://discuss.konghq.com/t/kong-reload-usage/6275/2 "2020-05-11T21:57:32Z")

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Hi,

You need to run kong prepare before reloading the service. Kong creates a .kong\_env file in $KONG\_PATH (by default /usr/local/kong/.kong\_env) where stores the configuration of the running instance. If you make some changes in the configuration file, you need to run first the prepare command and it will update the .kong\_env file, and after that you can make the reload and it will work.

You also can edit the systemd unit file (systemd edit kong) and add an extra line before the actual ExecReload that runs kong prepare when you launch systemctl reload kong.

Regards

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**Author:** ![Matt\_Burton](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discuss.konghq.com/matt_burton/32/1934_2.png) [@Matt\_Burton](https://discuss.konghq.com/u/Matt_Burton)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2020, 11:46pm UTC](https://discuss.konghq.com/t/kong-reload-usage/6275/3 "2020-05-11T23:46:16Z")

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@raleman that worked - thanks!