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Installation

RAVAS provides a Windows-compatible installation program for the Ravas Central Server. The installer executable can be found on Sharepoint

Prerequisites

On any computer running at least Windows 10, Windows Server 2019, there is no known software that needs to be installed beforehand. An internet connection is also not needed. Older versions of Windows may also work - however they might require the Visual Studio C++ 2015, 2017, 2019 Redistributable to be installed.

Components

The installer includes the following prerequisites and components:

  • .NET 9 hosting bundle (~112MB): required runtime for the server
  • PostgreSQL 17 binaries (~322MB): database used by the server
  • TimescaleDB binaries (~6MB): postgres extension for efficient time-based data storage and querying
  • Ravas Central Server binaries (~12MB): server application itself

The total compressed installer size comes in at: ~ 455MB.

Running the installer program

The installer must be run as an administrator. It will extract the required binaries, and setup 2 Windows Services, one for the database and another for the central server itself.

Make sure there is no existing & running installation of PostgreSQL before proceeding with the installation, or any other application that would block the TCP port 5432.

Important directories

Provided no errors occur - the installation is completely unattended, and does not yet have any configurable options. The following paths will be assumed for installation:

  • C:\Program Files\RAVAS\Central Server: the server and database binaries will both be extracted here
    • C:\Program Files\RAVAS\Central Server\database\pgsql: contains the PostgreSQL binaries and executable used in the PostgreSQL Windows Service
    • C:\Program Files\RAVAS\Central Server\server: contains the server binaries and executable used in the RAVAS.CentralServer Windows Service
  • C:\ProgramData\RAVAS\server-postgres-data: will contain the database itself, along with any extensions and data

It isn't especially required for the folders to be empty, but it recommended - if some application is already using some file in the folder there is a high possibility for the installation to fail.

Updating

The installer can also be used to update the Ravas Central Server. It should always be safe to re-run the installation program. It will overwrite any existing server files and, optionally, database binaries ( C:\Program Files\RAVAS\Central Server).

There is not yet any mechanism of updating the database itself (C:\ProgramData\RAVAS\server-postgres-data) as it should be required very rarely if ever.

In case of any errors during installation (file locks, system shutdown) the installer can simply be re-run after resolving the issue.

A special upgrade package will be developed shortly that will function identically to the installer, but will only contain the Ravas Central Server binaries, without the database, yielding an executable of under ~ 20MB.

Uninstalling

A special uninstaller package will be developed soon. For now the uninstallation process can be done manually by reversing the steps taken by the automatic installer:

  • Access Windows Services services.msc.
  • Stop and delete the service named Ravas.CentralServer.
  • Stop and delete the service named PostgreSQL.
  • Delete the folder and files at C:\Program Files\RAVAS\Central Server: Warning! this folder also contains all application logs, configuration files, and license key.
  • Delete the folder and files at C:\ProgramData\RAVAS\server-postgres-data: Warning! this folder contains all persisted data, user accounts made using the server.