Version requirements

Summary of changes for OMERO 5.6

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 5.6 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 (5.6) 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 5.6
32-bit
64-bit

NGINX

nginx	OMERO 5.6
1.23
1.24
1.25

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.

Linux (CentOS and RHEL)

General overview for RHEL and CentOS.

Version	Release date	Supported until	OMERO 5.6
RHEL 7	June 2014	June 2024
CentOS 7	June 2014	June 2024
RHEL 8	May 2019	Dec 2029
CentOS 8	May 2019	Dec 2021
RHEL 9	May 2022	May 2032
Rocky Linux 9	Jul 2022	May 2032

RHEL 9/Rocky Linux 9 are 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 5.6
18.04 LTS	Apr 2018	Apr 2028
20.04 LTS	Apr 2020	Apr 2030
22.04 LTS	Apr 2022	Apr 2032

Only the LTS releases are supported due to resource limitations upon CI and testing. Only the last LTS release is supported. 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
Rocky Linux 9	Reference
Ubuntu	Reference

PostgreSQL

General overview

OMERO support policies

Version	Release date	Supported until	OMERO 5.6
12	Sep 2019	Nov 2024
13	Sep 2020	Nov 2025
14	Sep 2021	Nov 2026
15	Sep 2022	Nov 2027
16	Sep 2023	Nov 2028

Version provided by distribution

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

Version	CentOS/RHEL	Ubuntu
12	9 (postgresql)	22.04 (postgresql)
13	9	22.04 (postgresql)
14	9 (postgresql)	22.04
15	9 (postgresql)	22.04 (postgresql)
16	9 (postgresql)	22.04 (postgresql)

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

Python

OMERO support policies

Version	Release date	Supported until	OMERO 5.6	Details
3.6	Dec 2016	Dec 2021		PEP 494
3.7	Jun 2018	Jun 2023		PEP 537
3.8	Oct 2018	Oct 2024		PEP 569
3.9	Oct 2020	Oct 2025		PEP 596
3.10	Oct 2021	Oct 2026		PEP 619
3.11	Oct 2022	Oct 2027		PEP 664
3.12	Oct 2023	Oct 2028		PEP 693

Version provided by distribution

Version	CentOS/RHEL	Ubuntu
3.9	9
3.10		22.04

The Django version used by OMERO.web (5.23.0) requires Python 3.8 or higher.

Ice

General overview

OMERO support policies

Version	Release date	Supported until	OMERO 5.6	Details
3.5	Mar 2013	Oct 2013		Release notes
3.6	June 2015	TBA		Release notes
3.7	July 2017	TBA		Release notes

Version provided by distribution

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

Version	CentOS/RHEL	Ubuntu
3.6	9 (zeroc-ice-rhel9-x86_64)	22.04 (zeroc-ice-ubuntu2204-x86_64)

Java

General overview

OMERO support policies

Version	Release date	Supported until	OMERO 5.6	Details
7	Jul 2011	Apr 2015		Reference
8	Mar 2014	Nov 2026		Reference
11	Sep 2018	Oct 2024		Reference
17	Sep 2018	Oct 2027		Reference

Version provided by distribution

Version	CentOS/RHEL	Ubuntu
11	9	22.04
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 5.6
1.23	Jun 2022	May 2023
1.24	Apr 2023	TBA
1.25	May 2023	TBA

Version provided by distribution

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

Version	RHEL/Rocky Linux	Ubuntu
1.23	9 (repo)	N/A
1.24	9 (repo)	22.04

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