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Installation

Getting HeliosDB-Lite

HeliosDB-Lite is source-available under SSPL-1.0 and is available to licensed customers — contact sales@heliosdb.com for access. It is not published on crates.io, PyPI, npm, Docker Hub or Homebrew, and its source repository is private.

Licensed customers receive the HeliosDB-Lite source distribution. The instructions below assume it is unpacked in a directory named heliosdb-lite.

CLI / Server Binary

Build the heliosdb-lite binary (REPL and PostgreSQL-compatible server) in the unpacked source distribution:

Terminal window
cd heliosdb-lite
# Build release
cargo build --release
./target/release/heliosdb-lite --help
# Optional: put the binary on your PATH
export PATH="$PWD/target/release:$PATH"

Docker Image

No public image is published. Build one from the source distribution:

Terminal window
cd heliosdb-lite
docker build -f deployment/docker/Dockerfile -t heliosdb-lite .
# The server refuses to start without a REST token-signing secret
export HELIOSDB_JWT_SECRET="$(openssl rand -hex 32)"
docker run -p 127.0.0.1:5432:5432 -e HELIOSDB_JWT_SECRET \
-v heliosdb_data:/data heliosdb-lite

The image runs heliosdb-lite start --data-dir /data --listen 0.0.0.0 --port 5432 with the default trust authentication. Publish the port on loopback as above, or pass your own start arguments with --auth scram-sha-256 --password ... before you expose it:

Terminal window
docker run -p 5432:5432 -e HELIOSDB_JWT_SECRET -v heliosdb_data:/data heliosdb-lite \
start --data-dir /data --listen 0.0.0.0 --port 5432 \
--auth scram-sha-256 --password 'choose-a-strong-password'

Client Access from Other Languages

HeliosDB-Lite speaks the PostgreSQL wire protocol, so Python, Node.js, Go, Java and other applications can connect to a running Lite server with their standard PostgreSQL driver (psycopg, pg, pgx, JDBC, …).

The Apache-2.0 HeliosDB client SDKs (Python, TypeScript, Rust, Go) are developed in the public HeliosDatabase/HeliosDB-SDKs repository and are installed from source — see SDKs & Integrations.

Platform Support

PlatformArchitectureResult
Linuxx86_64, aarch64Fully supported
macOSx86_64, Apple SiliconFully supported
Windowsx86_64Fully supported
FreeBSDx86_64Best effort (not officially supported)

Verifying Installation

Terminal window
# Confirm the binary runs and list its subcommands
heliosdb-lite --help
# Run a quick test in an in-memory REPL
heliosdb-lite repl --memory
> SELECT 1 + 1;
> \version

The CLI has no --version flag. Use the REPL meta-command \version, or, with a server running, curl http://localhost:8080/version (HTTP API port, default 8080). Both report the build version.

Next Steps