How to find out what build a galaxy site is running

Question

[Ann]

When I visit a site running a Galaxy instance, how can I tell what version it's running? Is there a page that gives version information?

[martenson]

This depends on the instance's owner. The official Main and Test instances have it in the footer of the landing page (which usually is part of welcome.html in the galaxy /static folder). But if the owner does not update this information you have no easy way to learn it.

[Dan D]

Did you not see my answer?! Unless the deployer specifically removes that welcome.rst file, my proposed method will provide the build number.

The official main/test instances have the changeset, not the build.

[martenson]

Isn't it weird that all Galaxies have the same build number there? ;)

[Dan D]

Even if it's not accurate, it's still the stated build number. If the devs aren't keeping up with it, then they certainly should be.

[martenson]

It is not accurate since 2006, that is the last time it changed. Devs have no controll over other people's instances plus there are various ways to update your Galaxy outside of VCS to make untrackable custom builds.

Answer 1

[Dan D]

Append '/static/welcome.rst' to the base url. Look at the last line of that file.

For example:

https://usegalaxy.org/static/welcome.rst

The last line reads:

Galaxy build 502

[Istvan Albert]

hehe, what a typical bioinformatics style workaround

[martenson]

That line is in there since 2006 (start of versioning). It is a 'dead' file.

https://bitbucket.org/galaxy/galaxy-central/src/ae898a17920b62e1aab2d6c181131062758c1535/static/welcome.rst?at=default

Answer 2

[martenson]

Disclosing of Galaxy version/build/changeset entirely depends on the owner of the instance.

The official Main usegalaxy.org and Test instances contain changeset in the footer of the landing page (which usually is part of welcome.html in the galaxy /static folder).

Your best choice, if you cannot find it on the page, is to write an email to the admin.