ORTHANC(1)

📦 version 1.13.0, in opensuse-leap 16.0

🌸 ORTHANC(1) — User Commands, bestie edition 🌸

okay so real talk, this is the manual page for Orthanc, and it lives in section 1 of the manual (User Commands), iykyk 💅

✨ NAME ✨

Orthanc — a lightweight, RESTful DICOM server for healthcare and medical research 🫶

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

Orthanc [OPTION]... [CONFIGURATION]

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

Orthanc, the lightweight, RESTful DICOM server for healthcare and medical research. That's the whole vibe. ✨

So about the CONFIGURATION argument — it can literally be a list of files or directories. And if one of those things is a directory, then all the JSON files it contains get merged together. Cute, right? 🎀

If you don't give any configuration path on the command line, a set of default parameters is used. No config? No problem, she'll run on defaults. 💅

For the full instructions about how to use Orthanc, please refer to the Orthanc Book: <https://orthanc.uclouvain.be/book/> — genuinely go read it, bestie, it's giving "required reading". 📚

⚠️ pay attention, fr fr: the order of the options is important. Options are read left to right. In particular, options such as --verbose can reset the value of other log-related options that were read before. So like, don't just yeet them in any order, the sequence matters. 😭

The recommended set of options to debug DICOM communications is:

--verbose --trace-dicom --logfile=dicom.log

that's the trio. the holy trinity of "why is my DICOM not working". 🙈

🔧 Generic options 🔧

  • --help — display this help and exit 👋
  • --version — output version information and exit ⭐
  • --config file — create a sample configuration file and exit (if file is -, dumps to stdout) 📝
  • --advanced-config file — create a file containing the advanced configuration options and exit (if file is -, dumps to stdout) 🧠
  • --errors — print the supported error codes and exit 💀
  • --upgrade — allow Orthanc to upgrade the version of the database. > 🚨 beware: the database will become incompatible with former versions of Orthanc. like, she will Not be going back. no cap.
  • --no-jobs — don't restart the jobs that were stored during the last execution of Orthanc 😴
  • --openapi file — write the OpenAPI documentation and exit (if file is -, dumps to stdout) 📄
  • --cheatsheet file — write the cheat sheet of REST API as CSV and exit (if file is -, dumps to stdout) 🗒️

📋 Logging options 📋

  • --logdir dir — directory where to store the log files (by default, the log is dumped to stderr) 📁
  • --logfile file — file where to store the log of Orthanc (by default, the log is dumped to stderr) 🗃️
  • --verbose — be verbose in logs 🗣️
  • --trace — highest verbosity in logs (for debug) 🔍
  • --logs-no-thread — remove thread names from logs ✂️
  • --logs-no-context — remove contexts from logs 🧹
  • --logs-thread-names-in-context — include caller thread names in log contexts 🧵

🎚️ Fine-tuning of log categories 🎚️

like, per-category volume control. iconic. 👑

  • --verbose-generic — be verbose in logs of category "generic" 🌱
  • --trace-generic — use highest verbosity for logs of category "generic" 🌱🔥
  • --verbose-plugins — be verbose in logs of category "plugins" 🧩
  • --trace-plugins — use highest verbosity for logs of category "plugins" 🧩🔥
  • --verbose-http — be verbose in logs of category "http" 🌐
  • --trace-http — use highest verbosity for logs of category "http" 🌐🔥
  • --verbose-sqlite — be verbose in logs of category "sqlite" 🗄️
  • --trace-sqlite — use highest verbosity for logs of category "sqlite" 🗄️🔥
  • --verbose-dicom — be verbose in logs of category "dicom" 🩻
  • --trace-dicom — use highest verbosity for logs of category "dicom" 🩻🔥
  • --verbose-jobs — be verbose in logs of category "jobs" ⚙️
  • --trace-jobs — use highest verbosity for logs of category "jobs" ⚙️🔥
  • --verbose-lua — be verbose in logs of category "lua" 🌙
  • --trace-lua — use highest verbosity for logs of category "lua" 🌙🔥

🦋 Exit status 🦋

  • 0 — if success 🎉
  • -1 — if error (have a look at the logs) 😭

💜 AUTHOR 💜

Written by Sebastien Jodogne <s.jodogne@orthanc-labs.com> 🫶

Copyright © 2012-2016 Sebastien Jodogne, Medical Physics Department, University Hospital of Liege (Belgium)

Copyright © 2017-2023 Osimis S.A. (Belgium)

Copyright © 2024-2026 Orthanc Team SRL (Belgium)

Copyright © 2021-2026 Sebastien Jodogne, ICTEAM UCLouvain (Belgium)

Licensing GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.

This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.

There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. (say it louder for the people in the back 📢)

and that's the whole page, bestie — Orthanc 1.13.0, August 2026, mwah 💋✨

📦 where this page comes from