System Requirements for a CollectionSpace Server

Server Requirements and Preparations

This document provides hardware and software requirements for a CollectionSpace server. We strongly recommend installing CollectionSpace on a dedicated Ubuntu 16.04.x LTS server. Most of our development and testing of CollectionSpace has taken place on Ubuntu 16.04.x LTS servers. That said, as far as we know, the CollectionSpace server runs fine on Mac OS X, Windows 7, and several other flavors of Linux.

To install CollectionSpace onto a Ubuntu 16.04 LTS server, you'll need to be very comfortable with the Linux bash shell and with using common Linux command-line tools to install CollectionSpace.  You will also need to have an account of the Ubuntu server that has elevated (i.e., sudo) privileges/permissions.

Supported Operating Systems

Although we regularly build and use CollectionSpace servers in multiple Linux environments and don't anticipate problems running CollectionSpace servers in other environments (other Unix-like OSes, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows), CollectionSpace has been extensively tested ONLY on Ubuntu 16.04.x LTS servers.

Successful Installations to Date

Operating systems on which the CollectionSpace server has been successfully installed and run to date include:

• Linux distributions:
  • Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Recommended)
• Apple Mac OS X:
  • Mac OS X 10.12 (Sierra)
  • Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion)
  • Mac OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
• Microsoft Windows:
  • Windows 7

Table 1-1 Hardware Requirements Summary

The hardware capabilities of your server will often have a greater impact on your system's overall performance than the capabilities of your client computers. Generally, the more memory and CPU you have available on your server, the better your CollectionSpace system will perform.

Table 1-2 Software Requirements for Installation

CollectionSpace is offered under the terms of an open source ECL 2.0 License (https://source.collectionspace.org/collection-space/LICENSE.txt).

Server Machine Preparations

Prepare your server machine (UNIX or Windows) to run CollectionSpace by following the next steps:

1. Install the required software described in Table 1-2 on the server machine. In particular, ensure that a PostgreSQL database server is installed and running. (For some instructions on installing PostgreSQL under various operating systems, see the relevant guide in Installing CollectionSpace.)
2. Create a folder in which to download the CollectionSpace software.

After doing so, follow the instructions for installing the CollectionSpace server in the relevant installation guide in Installing CollectionSpace.

Client Recommendations

Since the client side of CollectionSpace is a standard web interface, the requirements for the client are relatively light. Clients need only a reasonably up-to-date web browser (Internet Explorer is not supported) running under an operating system like Windows 7 or Mac OS X.

Because the CollectionSpace front-end runs in JavaScript within the browser, a faster client computer with more memory will yield better performance. The speed of the JavaScript interpreter in the client browser will also impact some aspects of performance.

Table 1-3 Client Software Recommendations

The CollectionSpace system is routinely tested with specific combinations of web browsers and operating systems, whose use is both recommended and supported: