Slicer Download

Site for listing the installers associated with the latest Stable and Preview Slicer releases.

Current deployments

The following deployments are hosted and maintained by Kitware.

URL	Description
https://download.slicer.org/	Production server
https://download-staging.slicer.org/	Testing server

Repository layout

This section describes main files and directories available in this repository.

• slicer_download_server

  Flask web application served using uWSGI and expected to be proxied through Nginx.

• slicer_download

  Python package implementing utility functions useful independently of the Flask web application.

• bin

  This directory contains shell scripts for starting/stopping the flask web application and for setting up the relevant environments.

  Name	Description
  backup-databases.sh	Archive databases as release assets associated with the Slicer/slicer_download_database_backups private repository.
  cron-getbuildinfo.sh	Invoke etc/slicer_getbuildinfo python application.
  cron-parselogs.sh	Invoke etc/slicer_parselogs python application.
  display-duplicate-drafts.sh	Display duplicate draft folders & items from https://slicer-packages.kitware.com/.
  download-fallback-databases.sh	Download latest database backups from [database-backups][https://github.com/Slicer/slicer_download_database_backups/releases/tag/database-backups] release associated with Slicer/slicer_download_database_backups repository.
  download-flask-templates-and-assets.sh	Download up-to-date flask templates from Slicer/slicer.org@download-slicer-org branch.
  geoipupdate	Download GeoIP Binary Databases into etc/geoip/db directory.
  kill	Shell script for killing the download Flask web application.
  start	Shell script for starting the download Flask web application.
  stop	Shell script for stopping the download Flask web application.
  update-database-useragent.sh	Update uainfo table re-parsing useragent strings.

• etc

  Name	Description
  slicer_getbuildinfo	Python application for retrieving application package information from https://slicer-packages.kitware.com/ and creating slicer-girder-records.sqlite file.
  slicer_parselogs	Python application for parsing Nginx access logs, updating download-stats.sqlite and generating slicer-download-data.json

Getting started with development

1. Create a virtual environment and install prerequisites

   cd slicer_download
   python -m venv env
   ./env/bin/python -m pip install -r requirements.txt -r requirements-dev.txt
   

2. Download up-to-date flask templates from Slicer/slicer.org@download-slicer-org branch.

   ./bin/download-flask-templates-and-assets.sh
   

3. If it applies, post a message on the 3D Slicer forum requesting access to https://github.com/Slicer/slicer_download_database_backups

   Go to https://discourse.slicer.org

4. Download latest database backups from database-backups release associated with Slicer/slicer_download_database_backups repository.

   export SLICER_BACKUP_DATABASE_GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789
   ./bin/download-fallback-databases.sh
   

   ⚠️ GitHub token specified in the previous command is a placeholder that should be replaced with a valid one.

5. Setup startup environment

   echo "export SLICER_DOWNLOAD_DB_FALLBACK=True" >> ./bin/.start_environment
   

6. Start the server

   ./bin/start
   

Startup environment

These variables may be exported in the file ./bin/.start_environment to customize environment associated with the ./bin/start script.

Variable Name	Description	Default
UWSGI_HTTP_HOST	Host associated with the uWSGI server running the Flask application.	127.0.0.1
UWSGI_HTTP_PORT	Port associated with the uWSGI server running the Flask application.	53683
SLICER_DOWNLOAD_DEBUG	If True, show unhandled exceptions and reload server when code changes. For more details, see here.	False
SLICER_DOWNLOAD_DB_FALLBACK	If True, lookup the fallback database.	False
SLICER_DOWNLOAD_DB_FILE	Path to the database file containing download records.	./var/slicer-<server_api>-records.sqlite or ./etc/fallback/slicer-<SLICER_DOWNLOAD_SERVER_API>-records.sqlite if SLICER_DOWNLOAD_DB_FALLBACK is True.
SLICER_DOWNLOAD_URL	URL of the Slicer download server.	http://${UWSGI_HTTP_HOST}:<UWSGI_HTTP_PORT>
SLICER_DOWNLOAD_SERVER_API	Supported values are Girder_v1 or Midas_v1.	Midas_v1

History

The original implementation was created by Mike Halle (@mhalle, BWH) in 2011 and hosted on a server maintained within the Surgical Planning Laboratory (SPL) at Harvard University.

In 2014, Mike Halle added source code to GitHub (see archive here) and set up the server using WebFaction.

In December 2020, Mike transitioned the hosting from WebFaction to opalstack.

Then, in May 2021, Jean-Christophe Fillion-Robin (@jcfr, Kitware) worked with Mike to transition the GitHub project to its current home. J-Christophe also updated the implementation so that it can be deployed in arbitrary environments and added support to integrate with the new backend infrastructure built on Girder for managing Slicer application and extension packages.

In July 2021, the production server was migrated to a server hosted and maintained by Kitware. Additionally, the landing page was updated to match the style of the slicer.org website.

License

It is covered by the Apache License, Version 2.0:

https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

The license file was added at revision 24bfe91 on 2021-07-20, but you may consider that the license applies to all prior revisions as well.