Version requirements

Summary of changes for OMERO 5.6 and provisional changes for 6.0

We aim to support OMERO on the environments specified below, based on the availability of support by upstream developers and operating system distributions. This applies over the lifetime of the UNKNOWN release and includes security support. Support is limited to those environments on which OMERO is routinely tested.

This page details the minimum version requirements for the current (UNKNOWN) release and also possible changes for the next release.

It is intended to provide a roadmap in order that sysadmins may plan ahead and ensure that prerequisites are in place for future upgrades.

Level	Meaning
	unsupported/new
	supported/suboptimal
	supported/optimal
	supported/deprecated
	unsupported/old
	unsupported/broken
	unsupported/misc

Please check the full support levels table for more info on each support level.

Bitness

Rationale: OMERO is tested on 64-bit systems only.

Bitness	OMERO 5.4	OMERO 5.5	OMERO 5.6	OMERO 6.0
32-bit	for Ice and native code [client]
64-bit

NGINX

nginx	OMERO 5.4	OMERO 5.5	OMERO 5.6
1.8
1.10
1.12
1.14
1.16

Operating system support

The following subsections detail the versions of each operating system which are supported by both its upstream developers (for security and general updates) and by OME for OMERO building and server deployment.

UNIX (FreeBSD)

It only really makes sense to support the base toolchain for major releases and the Ports tree (which is continually updated); these will be covered in the dependencies, below.

Linux (CentOS and RHEL)

General overview for RHEL and CentOS

Version	Release date	Supported until	OMERO 5.4	OMERO 5.5	OMERO 5.6	OMERO 6.0	Details
6	Nov 2010	Nov 2020					Reference
7	June 2014	June 2024					Reference
8	May 2019	May 2029					Reference

RHEL/CentOS 7 is supported at present. Given the long life of enterprise releases, we intend to support only the latest release at any given time or else it ties us into very old dependencies.

Linux (Ubuntu)

General overview

Version	Release date	Supported until	OMERO 5.4	OMERO 5.5	OMERO 5.6	OMERO 6.0
14.04 LTS	Apr 2014	Apr 2019
16.04 LTS	Apr 2016	Apr 2021
18.04 LTS	Apr 2018	Apr 2028
20.04 LTS	Apr 2020	Apr 2030

Only the LTS releases are supported due to resource limitations upon CI and testing. Only the last two LTS releases are supported (being a bit more frequent than CentOS/RHEL). There is currently no CI testing for any version.

Microsoft Windows

Client support only. See blog post explanation

MacOS X

MacOS X is typically suited only to client use, not serious server deployment, although the server can be expected to run on versions with current security support for testing purposes.

Dependencies

The following subsections detail the versions of each dependency needed by OMERO which are supported by both its upstream developers (for security and general updates) and by OME for OMERO building and server and client deployment.

Note

Versions in brackets are in development distributions and may change without notice.

Package lists

Operating system	Details
CentOS 6 / RHEL 6	EOL
CentOS 7 / RHEL 7	Reference
Ubuntu	Reference
Homebrew	Reference
FreeBSD Ports	Reference

PostgreSQL

General overview

OMERO support policies

Version	Release date	Supported until	OMERO 5.4	OMERO 5.5	OMERO 5.6	OMERO 6.0
9.3	Sep 2013	Sep 2018
9.4	Dec 2014	Dec 2019
9.5	Jan 2016	Jan 2021
9.6	Sep 2016	Sep 2021
10	Oct 2017	Nov 2022
11	Oct 2018	Nov 2023
12	Oct 2019	Nov 2024

Version provided by distribution

If no version is provided, a suitable repository is indicated.

Version	CentOS/RHEL	Ubuntu	Homebrew	FreeBSD Ports
10	6 (postgresql), 7 (postgresql), 8 (postgresql)	14.04, 16.04, 18.04 (postgresql)	Yes	Yes
11	6 (postgresql), 7 (postgresql), 8 (postgresql)	16.04, 18.04, 20.04 (postgresql)	Yes	Yes
12	6 (postgresql), 7 (postgresql), 8 (postgresql)	16.04, 18.04, 20.04 (postgresql)	Yes	Yes
Details		Reference

The PostgreSQL project provides packages for supported platforms therefore distribution support is not necessary.

Python

OMERO support policies

Version	Release date	Supported until	OMERO 5.4	OMERO 5.5	OMERO 5.6	OMERO 6.0	Details
2.6	Oct 2008	Oct 2013	1 2				PEP 361
2.7	Jul 2010	Jan 2020					PEP 373
3.2	Feb 2011	Feb 2016					PEP 392
3.3	Sep 2012	Sep 2017					PEP 398
3.4	Mar 2014	Mar 2019					PEP 429
3.5	Sep 2015	Sep 2020					PEP 478
3.6	Dec 2016	Dec 2021					PEP 494
3.7	Jun 2018	Jun 2023					PEP 537

1

For OMERO.web, Python 2.7 is the minimum supported version.

2

For OMERO.py and OMERO.server 5.4, Python 2.6 is the minimum supported version.

Version provided by distribution

Version	CentOS/RHEL	Ubuntu	Homebrew	FreeBSD Ports
2.6	6	10.04	N/A	Yes
2.7	7	14.04, 16.04, 18.04	Yes	Yes
3.2	N/A	N/A	N/A	Yes
3.3	N/A	N/A	N/A	Yes
3.4	7 (EPEL)	14.04	N/A	Yes
3.5	N/A	16.04	N/A	Yes
3.6	7 (EPEL)	18.04	Yes	Yes
Details		Python 2 Python 3

Python 2.7 support ends in 2020;

The Django version used by OMERO.web (1.11.26) is supported on Python 3.5, 3.6 and 3.7

Ice

General overview

OMERO support policies

Version	Release date	Supported until	OMERO 5.4	OMERO 5.5	OMERO 5.6	OMERO 6.0	Details
3.5	Mar 2013	Oct 2013					3.5.0, 3.5.1
3.6	June 2015	TBA					3.6.0 (3.6.1 ), 3.6.2, 3.6.3, 3.6.4, 3.6.5.
3.7	July 2017	TBA					3.7.0, 3.7.1, 3.7.2, 3.7.3.

Version provided by distribution

If no version is provided, a suitable repository is indicated.

Version	CentOS/RHEL	Ubuntu	Homebrew	FreeBSD Ports
3.5	6, 7 (zeroc)	14.04, 16.04	N/A	N/A
3.6	6, 7 (zeroc)	14.04, 16.04 (zeroc)	Yes	Yes
3.7	7 (zeroc)	16.04, 18.04 (zeroc)	Yes	Yes
Details		Reference

Java

General overview

OMERO support policies

Version	Release date	Supported until	OMERO 5.4	OMERO 5.5	OMERO 5.6	OMERO 6.0	Details
7	Jul 2011	Apr 2015					Reference
8	Mar 2014	Jun 2023					Reference
11	Sep 2018	Oct 2024					Reference
12	Sep 2018	Oct 2024
13	Sep 2018	Oct 2024

Version provided by distribution

Version	CentOS/RHEL	Ubuntu	Homebrew	FreeBSD Ports
7	6, 7	14.04	N/A	Yes
8	6, 7	16.04, 18.04	N/A	N/A
11	7	18.04	N/A	Yes
Details		Reference

Note that all distributions provide OpenJDK due to distribution restrictions by Oracle. Oracle Java may be used if downloaded separately.

NGINX

General overview and roadmap

OMERO support policies

Version	Release date	Supported until	OMERO 5.4	OMERO 5.5	OMERO 5.6	OMERO 6.0
1.6	Apr 2014	Apr 2015
1.8	Apr 2015	Jan 2016
1.10	Apr 2016	Apr 2017
1.12	Apr 2017	Apr 2018
1.14	Apr 2018	Apr 2019
1.16	Apr 2019	TBA

Version provided by distribution

If no version is provided, a suitable repository is indicated.

Version	CentOS/RHEL	Ubuntu	Homebrew	FreeBSD Ports
1.12	7 (EPEL)	14.04 (nginx)	N/A	Yes
1.14	N/A	16.04, 18.04 (nginx)	Yes	Yes
Details			Reference

Support levels

The following table defines the symbols used throughout this page to describe the support status of a given component, as it progresses from being new and not supported, to supported and tested on a routine basis, and to finally being old and no longer supported nor tested.

Level	Meaning	Description
	unsupported/new	New version not yet regularly tested and not officially supported; may or may not work (use at own risk)
	supported/suboptimal	Version which is tested, confirmed to work correctly, but may not offer optimal performance/experience
	supported/optimal	Version which is regularly tested, confirmed to work correctly, recommended for optimal performance/experience
	supported/deprecated	Version which is less tested, expected to work correctly, but may not offer optimal performance/experience; official support may be dropped in the next major OMERO release
	unsupported/old	Old version no longer tested and no longer officially supported; may or may not work (use at own risk)
	unsupported/broken	Known to not work
	unsupported/misc	Not supported for some reason other than the above