Building an Ensembl Mirror

The build instructions are split into three sections:

How to install other applications required by Ensembl: CVS, Perl, MySQL, Apache 2, Dotter
How to install the Ensembl and BioMart software
How to install the Ensembl data

Ensembl and MySQL

PLEASE NOTE - even if you do not wish to download all the Ensembl data - for the website to function you will need:

a local database server to manage display settings and user accounts (if these are enabled).
the mysql client software installed on your machine.

If you do not wish to run MySQL (or cannot run a MySQL server locally) AND you do not wish to enable user accounts then you can alternatively install SQLite as an alternative server.

Ensembl Version Numbers...

Each Ensembl release has an integer version number associated with it, and that version number is used to identify the correct versions of API, Web code and databases (see below) that make up that release.

For the API and Web code, a CVS branch (essentially a named snapshot of the code) is made for each release, named with the release version number. The current release is version 54, and the CVS tag for identifying the API and Web code for this release is 'branch-ensembl-54'.

The Ensembl database names consist of the species, the database type, the release number, and the data version. The current human 'core' database is named homo_sapiens_core_54_36p. i.e. a human core database, release 54, data version 36p built on the NCBI 36 assembly. Subsequent data releases on the same assembly are suffixed with a lower case letter (a, b, etc.).

The idea is that components with the same release version should work together - i.e. any web site built with 'version 31' API and web code, and 'version 31' databases should work correctly.

Once you have completed all these steps, you are ready to configure your installation.

Next: Configuration →