What are the database requirements?

General database requirements

CAST Imaging requires at least one 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 or Linux.
Details about one instance will be required during the CAST Imaging installation process (both analysis and persistence data will automatically be stored on this instance).
Customers are free to install additional database instances post-install, for example to separate the storage of persistence data and analysis data on two separate instances.

Depending on your installation scenario:

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), or use the PostgreSQL instance provided by CAST as a Docker container.

Starting 3.6.0-funcrel, when installing CAST Imaging on Linux via Docker or Linux via Podman, the database mode is controlled by the DB_MODE parameter in the configuration.conf file providing deployment flexibility (see Installation variables):

DB_MODE=embedded (default): CAST provides and manages a PostgreSQL container automatically (see below for the supported PostgreSQL release). No external PostgreSQL installation is required as part of the installation process. All Analysis and persistence data will automatically be stored on this instance.
DB_MODE=external: You must provide details of an external PostgreSQL instance and configure the connection parameters (DB_HOST, DB_PORT, DB_NAME, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD, DB_DATABASE) in configuration.conf before installing.

For those installing older releases on Linux (3.5.x-funcrel or earlier), the embedded PostgreSQL instance will always be installed and will be used by default for both analysis and persistence data.

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

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.x) one database called keycloak_v3 was created for authentication persistence purposes instead of the schema keycloak.

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 this release of PostgreSQL as a Docker image when installing CAST Imaging on Linux via Docker/Podman.
14.x	64bit