Running XNAT in a Dockerized Container with Configurable Dependencies

The XNAT team has been distributing containerized versions of XNAT since the release of XNAT 1.7.6, via the xnat-docker-compose repo. However, motivated by the complex build process and set of related dependencies required to run the Beta version of the XNAT ML demo, we created the "dependency management" branch in the xnat-docker-compose repo. The file README.md in this branch contains detailed instructions on setup, as well as a listing of recipes or manifests that can be used to bring up a specific XNAT build. Here is a brief subset of those instructions.

Installing

Start by cloning the xnat-docker-compose repository and checking out the features/dependency-mgmt branch:

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$ git clone https://github.com/NrgXnat/xnat-docker-compose
$ cd xnat-docker-compose
$ git checkout features/dependency-mgmt

Launching

At this point, you can start XNAT with a basic configuration just by building and launching the docker-compose configuration:

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$ ./gradlew composeBuild composeUp

The composeBuild task builds containers for any services that require special container builds, while composeUp actually launches the containers. You can monitor the status of the deployment by watching the log generated for the xnat-web container:

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$ docker logs --follow xnat-web

You should eventually see a message like this:

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Mar 02, 2021 10:35:24 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina start
INFO: Server startup in 208163 ms

At that point, open http://localhost in a browser and you should see the XNAT login page.

This basic configuration consists of containers running:

XNAT itself, running as an application in Tomcat 9.0
Traefik, a front-end proxy and load balancer that directs HTTP requests to the appropriate service
PostgreSQL, for database services

You can also launch XNAT in a full-stack deployment, which includes containers running:

Orthanc, a PACS service
ActiveMQ, a messaging broker for distributing processing tasks
Postfix relay service, for relaying emails to another SMTP server

To launch the full-stack deployment, start the configuration with the following command:

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$ ./gradlew fullStackComposeBuild fullStackComposeUp

Just like with composeBuild and composeUp, the fullStackComposeBuild task builds containers for any services that require special container builds, while fullStackComposeUp launches the containers. You can monitor the status of the deployment by watching the log generated for the xnat-web container.

Next Steps

The documentation in the GitHub repo contains detailed instructions on configuring your containerized XNAT, as well as mounting data, modifications necessary to use the Container Service, and other troubleshooting.