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GIFT-Cloud's customised fork of xnatbuilder, used to set up a GIFT-Cloud server

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GIFT-Cloud Server

GIFT-Cloud is a secure data storage and collaboration platform for medical imaging research.

GiftCloudServerBuilder is the codebase required to install a GIFT-Cloud Server. It is a customised fork of xnat_builder.

Authors: Tom Doel and Dzhoshkun Shakir, Translational Imaging Group, Centre for Medical Image Computing, University College London (UCL). GIFT-Cloud was developed as part of the GIFT-Surg project. If you use this software, please cite this paper. Doel et al., GIFT-Cloud: A data sharing and collaboration platform for medical imaging research

GIFT-Cloud Server extends the XNAT system developed by Harvard University / Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) / Washington University.

Disclaimer

  • GIFT-Cloud and XNAT are not certified for clinical use.

Software links

License

Copyright (c) 2014-2016, University College London.

GIFT-Cloud is available as free open-source software under a BSD 3-Clause License.

Parts of GIFT-Cloud derive from XNAT

  • XNAT (Harvard University / Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) / Washington University) uses the BSD 2-Clause License

System requirements

GIFT-Cloud Server runs a customised version of XNAT. Please see XNAT 1.6 prerequisites.

GIFT-Cloud Server can be installed on Linux, macOS or Windows.

GIFT-Cloud Server requires:

  • PostgreSQL 9.1 or later
  • Oracle Java SDK 1.7
  • Apache Tomcat 7.0

Depending on how you intend to deploy GIFT-Cloud Server, you may also need to configure a firewall, Apache daemon, SSL certificates, system backups etc.

Installation

Installing a GIFT-Cloud Server is performed by building the server code with the following codebase:

  • GiftCloudServerBuilder is used to initially build and deploy the customised XNAT server. It is used in place of the xnat_builder repository that would be used to build a standard XNAT installation.

Optionally, further customisations to the XNAT user interface can be performed using GiftCloudServerModule codebase. A default build of GiftCloudServerModule is included with GiftCloudServerBuilder, so you do not need it for a default GIFT-Cloud Server installation.

  • GiftCloudServerModule is an XNAT Module that provides required data types and additional customisations for GIFT-Cloud. This module can be built and installed when you set up the GIFT-Cloud Server, or it can be installed later. You may wish to make further customisations to this module to configure the user interface and data types appropriate for your project.
  • If you wish to make further customisations you should clone the GiftCloudServerModule repository and make your modifications in that. You would then delete the jar file included with GiftCloudServerBuilder and replace it with the one you build using GiftCloudServerModule. Further details are provided in the GiftCloudServerModule repository and the XNAT Module documentation

To install Gift-Cloud Server, you will follow the XNAT installation procedure, but you will use the GiftCloudServerBuilder instead of xnat_builder. Please procede using the following steps:

  • Install the prerequisites (Oracle Java SDK, Apache Tomcat, PostgreSQL)
  • Follow the XNAT 1.6 Installation Guide, but instead of xnat_build, use the GiftCloudServerBuilder codebase
  • If you have customised GiftCloudServerModule, follow the procedure described in that repository, which follow the XNAT Module documentation to install the GiftCloudServerModule cusomtisations.

Issues

If you experience installation issues, they will almost certainly be related to your configuration of XNAT, Java, Tomcat or PostgreSQL. The best way to resolve these is through the XNAT support resources:

Funding

GIFT-Cloud is part of GIFT-Surg. [GIFT-Surg][giftsurg was supported through an Innovative Engineering for Health award by the Wellcome Trust [WT101957], the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) [NS/A000027/1] and a National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre UCLH/UCL High Impact Initiative.