Requirements

Server

The PatchBase server runs on any modern Linux system. Here's what you'll need:

Operating system

Any Linux distribution. We provide packages for:

RPM-based:

• Rocky Linux 9 / 10
• AlmaLinux 9 / 10

DEB-based:

• Ubuntu 22.04 / 24.04 / 26.04
• Debian 12 / 13

You can also build from source or run via Docker Compose.

PostgreSQL

PatchBase requires PostgreSQL 13 or newer. We develop and test against PostgreSQL 16, but anything from 13 onward works fine. You'll need:

• A dedicated database (e.g., patchbase)
• A user with full permissions on that database

If you don't already have PostgreSQL running, the quick start guide shows how to spin one up with Docker Compose.

System resources

The server is lightweight. For a small fleet (up to ~50 hosts):

• CPU: 1 vCPU
• RAM: 512 MB
• Disk: 1 GB for the application and advisory databases

Larger deployments will benefit from more RAM and CPU, but PatchBase is not resource-hungry.

Network

The server listens on port 5199 by default. If you're running behind a reverse proxy, make sure WebSocket connections are forwarded (the dashboard uses WebSockets for live updates).

Agent

The agent runs on each host you want to monitor. It's a single static binary with no runtime dependencies.

Supported hosts

OS family	Distributions
APT	Ubuntu 22.04+, Debian 12+
RPM	Rocky Linux 9+, AlmaLinux 9+

The agent needs:

• Outbound network access to the PatchBase server (HTTP/HTTPS on port 5199 by default)
• Read access to /etc/os-release, /etc/machine-id, and the package manager's database

No root privileges are strictly required for collection, but the systemd timer is typically run as root.

SSH pull mode

If you prefer not to install the agent on each host, the server can SSH into your hosts directly. For this mode you'll need:

• SSH access from the server to each host
• An SSH key pair (PatchBase can generate one per host, or use a shared key)
• bash and basic utilities (hostname, uname, dpkg-query or rpm) on the target host