BDSA_Setup_Documentation
Overview
Purpose: This guide explains how to deploy a Digital Slide Archive (DSA) instance, from a quick container-based startup to production-scale deployment considerations. It is intended for both:
This section gets a DSA instance running on your local machine in minutes. This is not yet a production deployment it is a way to verify the software works and to begin exploring configuration before making infrastructure decisions.
Before starting, ensure you have:
Why these requirements? DSA runs as a multi-container stack: a MongoDB database, a RabbitMQ message broker, one or more Celery worker processes for background tasks (like tile generation), and the Girder-based web application itself. Each of these consumes memory and disk. The 4 GB minimum keeps the stack responsive even during initial data import.
Replace with the actual IP address of the server.
How to find the server's IP address:
From the project’s README on GitHub.
At a glance
| Repository | Kentucky-Open-Science/BDSA_Setup_Documentation |
|---|---|
| Research area | Other projects |
| Primary language | None detected |
| License | None specified |
| Stars / forks | 0 / 0 |
| Open issues and pull requests | 0 |
| Created | 2026-04-28 |
| Last push | 2026-04-28 |
| Default branch | main |
What the README covers
- Table of Contents
- Quickstart: From Zero to Running
- Prerequisites
- Launch the Stack
- Verify It's Running
- Running on your local machine
- Running on a remote/headless server
- What to expect
- Deployment Architecture Options
- Option A: Public Internet Deployment
- Architecture Flow
- Benefits
- Requirements
- When to Choose This Option
- Option B: Secure Tunnel Deployment Behind Firewall
- Architecture Flow
- Benefits
- Requirements
- When to Choose This Option
- Infrastructure Decisions Guide
- Networking
- What hostname will users access?
- Is the DSA server public?
- Will a relay tunnel be required?
- Which ports are open?
- Security
- Who manages SSL certificates?
- How are certificates renewed?
- What authentication method will be used?
- Storage
Top contributors
- @mitchklusty (4 commits)
Get the code
git clone https://github.com/Kentucky-Open-Science/BDSA_Setup_Documentation.git