Local installation of WormBase

Imagine being able to run WormBase on your own local computer, unencumbered from server load at www.wormbase.org, network latency, or even the need for a network connection. Run BLAST searches on your laptop enroute to your next presentation somehwere over the Atlantic or explore expression patterns of your favorite gene family at your local coffee shop.

Maybe you have a private dataset that you would like to incorporate with WormBase but share within your lab or organization.

Or perhaps you would like to set up a mirror site of WormBase as a community resource.

1. Manual installation

As of September 2009, the supported method is to install all components of WormBase individually. It requires that one be familiar with Unix/Linux and have access to a server-class machine. This requires significant time and effort upfront, and some time every few weeks to keep things up-to-date.

2. Use "Virtual Machines" of WormBase

A former, but no longer supported method, of running a WormBase mirror is to download and run it as a virtual machine. Virtual machines (or VMX) are self-contained packages of everything you need to use WormBase locally. By everything, we mean everything: all the software, third party libraries, databases and datasets, and even an operating system (in our case, CentOS Linux). Virtual machines can be opened on Mac, Windows, and Linux platforms using the free VMPlayer (Linux, Windows) or the VMWare Fusion Player (Mac) available from VMWare. In essence, one runs a complete operating system complete with WormBase INSIDE the main operating system.

Read more about how to use and where to get WormBase Virtual Machines.