What are the database requirements?

General database requirements

CAST Imaging requires an RDBMS to store both the data generated during analyses and persistence data (settings/properties etc.). CAST supports only PostgreSQL . Customers are responsible for installing PostgreSQL on their own machines on both Microsoft Windows and Linux:

Microsoft Windows: install an official PostgreSQL release from EnterpriseDB — see Install PostgreSQL for Microsoft Windows.
Linux: install an official PostgreSQL release directly on a Linux machine or through Docker/Podman — see Install PostgreSQL for Linux.

When installing CAST Imaging on Linux via Docker or Linux via Podman, CAST provides a database instance as a Docker image (see below for details). By default, this instance will be used by CAST Imaging for both analysis data and persistence data storage needs. However, you are free to install additional database instances in whatever configuration you require, for example to separate the storage of persistence data and analysis data on two separate instances.

Requirements for analysis data

Three schemas will be created automatically in a database of your choice (postgres by default) for each application you onboard in CAST Imaging:

<application_name>_local
<application_name>_central
<application_name>_mngt

An additional schema will be created automatically in a database of your choice (postgres by default) if you are using the CAST Health/Management Dashboard, where results for all applications are consolidated together:

general_measure (or other custom name)

Requirements for persistence data

Microsoft Windows

Two schemas (control_panel and keycloak) will be created automatically in the database of your choice (postgres by default) during the installation - if either of these schemas already exist they will be re-used and this may cause unexpected behaviour.

Note that in previous releases (3.0.x - 3.5.3) one database called keycloak_v3 was created for authentication persistence purposes instead of the schema keycloak.

Docker/Podman

A database is required (keycloak_v3 by default but the name can be customized) and will be created automatically during the installation - if this database already exists it will be re-used and this may cause unexpected behaviour
One schema (control_panel) will be created automatically in the database of your choice (postgres by default) during the installation - if this schema already exists it will be re-used and this may cause unexpected behaviour.

Supported PostgreSQL releases

CAST supports the following official PostgreSQL releases on both Microsoft Windows and Linux (64-bit):

PostgreSQL release	Architecture	Notes
18.x	64bit	Recommended. Requires com.castsoftware.imaging.core 8.4.8 or above.
17.x	64bit	Requires com.castsoftware.imaging.core 8.4.8 or above. Note: When using a 17.x instance with CAST Imaging 3.5.4-funcrel installed on Docker/Podman/Kubernetes, schema backups via the built-in application backup feature are unavailable. This is a known issue, resolved in 3.5.5-funcrel.
16.x	64bit	Requires com.castsoftware.imaging.core 8.4.1 or above.
15.x	64bit	CAST provides a database instance (v. 15) as a Docker image when installing CAST Imaging on Linux via Docker/Podman.
14.x	64bit

See here for information about how to install on Microsoft Windows, here for information about how to install direct on Linux, or here for information about how to install an official PostgreSQL image on Docker.