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History: Requirements

Preview of version: 195

See also Tiki's Lifecycle and Browser Compatibility.

Requirements and Setup

This page lists the minimum requirements and recommended settings to install Tiki.

If you are using a standard shared webhost, your webhost most likely meets these requirements and you should be able to install Tiki with no problems. Tiki is designed to run on shared hosting, using the LAMP stack.

These instructions are useful for people that are configuring their own server for Tiki.

A Server Check script has been developed that will make everything easier! Just upload a single PHP file to your server before installing Tiki and you will get an advice on your server configuration.


Shared Host

Tiki will run in most shared webhost environments. Many hosts offer Tiki installation via a control panel application (such as Fantastico).

You should verify that your webhost meets the minimum requirements:


See Tiki Friendly Hosts for a list of working shared host environments.

Requirements

Webserver

You must have a fully operational webserver in order to install and use Tiki. Tiki should run on any webserver that supports PHP (such as Windows IIS or lighttpd), but is most widely tested and used with Apache. You may need to make minor modifications for non-Apache webservers.

To simply installation on Windows IIs, Tiki is included in the Windows Web App Gallery and can be installed with the Microsoft Web Platform Installer. See Microsoft Web Platform installer for details.

Your webserver should be configured with the following minimum requirements:

  • 512 MB RAM
  • 100 MB free storage

Database

Tiki requires one of these RDBMS-s:

MariaDB (version 5+). Tiki versions 15 to 18 support MariaDB 10.1 (once the database is in the version 15 format, i.e. upgrade scripts from earlier versions may not support running on MariaDB 10.1).
MySQL (version 5+). Tiki versions 12 to 15 support MySQL 5.5. Tiki 18 supports MySQL 5.7.

The database can be installed in the same physical location of the webserver (that is, as localhost) or Tiki can access a remote database.

PHP

Tiki Version Minimum PHP Version Maximum PHP version Notes
Tiki20 or Tiki21 LTS in discussion Too soon to know
Tiki19 (unreleased) 7.1 7.1 (7.2 probably works for most configurations/features)
Tiki18 LTS 5.6 7.0 (7.2 probably works for most configurations/features)
Tiki16 or Tiki17 5.6 5.6 Tiki 17 will run 99% ok on PHP 7.1 - a couple of known issues are spreadsheet import/export and html mode diff view
Tiki15 LTS 5.5 5.6
Tiki13 or Tiki14 PHP 5.5 PHP 5.6 With a focus on the new Zend OPcache
Why 5.5 and not 5.4
Tiki10, Tiki11 or Tiki12 PHP 5.3 PHP 5.6 PHP 5.3 was released in June 2009 and PHP 5.2.x reached end of life in December 2010, which is nearly two years before Tiki10 will be released
Unable to load the jQuery Sortable Tables feature.


The following versions are unsupported. Historical information below is just provided as a reference. Maximum PHP is unknown because these older versions are not actively tested against PHP versions that are released several years later.

Tiki Version Minimum PHP Version Notes
Tiki7, Tiki8 or Tiki9 LTS PHP 5.2 with the PDO extension If PDO is not available, you can revert to ADOdb. See ReleaseNotes40 for details.

If you can't get PHP 5.2 (released in November 2006!), you can keep on using Tiki6 LTS (end of support for Tiki6 LTS is when Tiki 10 13 is released)
Tiki5 or Tiki6 LTS PHP 5.1 with the PDO extension If PDO is not available, you can revert to ADOdb. See ReleaseNotes40 for details.

PHP 5.2 is preferred primarily to access features in Zend libraries and can be necessary for some of the newer features like WebDAV, however, globally, Tiki works with PHP 5.1

Tiki6 LTS End of life is November 2012 has been extended until May 2014 (when Tiki 13 is released).
Tiki4 PHP5 with the PDO extension If PDO is not available, you can revert to ADOdb. See ReleaseNotes40 for details.
Tiki3 LTS PHP5 This was a Long Term Support (LTS) version. End of life was May 2011, where you should upgrade to Tiki6 LTS
Unable to load the jQuery Sortable Tables feature.


Interesting links about PHP lifecycle


For all versions, MySQLi extension is recommended but the Tiki installer will fall back to the older MySQL driver if MySQLi is unavailable.

Note on PHP Memory Limits:

The default memory_limit in a standard PHP 5.3 installation is 128M, and this should be fine for the vast majority of Tiki installations. Some web hosts install PHP with a lower default. Although Tiki may appear to install successfully, you will continually face issues with pages failing to load and system errors.

To review your PHP Memory Limits, access http://www.example.com/tiki-phpinfo.php and review the following values:

  • max_execution_time = 60 ; Maximum execution time of each script, in seconds
  • max_input_time = 60 ; Maximum amount of time each script may spend parsing request data
  • memory_limit = 128M ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume


For some shared webhosts, these values may not be user-configurable and you may need to request changes from your webhost, whereas in other hosts you are allowed to fine tune these settings for your needs. You can try uncommenting the corresponding lines in the .htaccess file at your tiki root folder on the server, like:

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# increase memory php_value memory_limit 128M # increase execution time... php_value max_execution_time 90

More information

Required PHP Functions

Some webhosts tend to disable some functions which are required for Tiki to run flawlessly.

Function Notes
eval() Required by Smarty templating engine.
Causes "Please contact support about" messages appearing instead of Modules when eval() is disabled in php.ini.
Unable to load the jQuery Sortable Tables feature.

Additional Libraries

Library Notes
libxml Required
http://us2.php.net/manual/en/ref.xml.php
DOM extension Required starting from version 19
mbstring Required by zend_search_lucene for Admin panel searching and managing preferences in perspectives.
Useful when working with languages that require it
http://us2.php.net/manual/en/ref.mbstring.php. mbstring needs to be compiled with --enable-mbregex or otherwise you will be missing functions like mb_split() which are needed for example by Smarty.
Since Tiki 17, the mbstring PHP extension should no longer be needed in any case, since Tiki depends on the symfony/polyfill-mbstring compatibility library (via symfony-console).
ctype Required
calendar Required for Tiki 6 and higher
iconv Required by certain Zend Framework validation and parsing classes
Unable to load the jQuery Sortable Tables feature.

php.ini Configuration

We recommend using the following configuration in your php.ini file:

PHP.INI Setting Description
memory_limit = 128M Specify the maximum memory for PHP scripts.
_file_uploads = On Required to allow uploads (files, images, etc.) to your Tiki
upload_max_filesize = XXM
post_max_size
Specify the maximum upload filesize (in MB).
allow_url_fopen = On Allow trackback pings in your Tiki blogs. Deprecated since about Tiki4. No trackback feature available.
session.save_path = /tmp The directory where PHP stores session information (for the default handler (files)). Ensure that the location exists and is writable. In Shared Hosting environments, if you do not have access to /tmp, use temp (no slash) instead.
max_execution_time = 60
max_input_time = 60
Specify the idle timeout (in seconds). If you experience timeouts (such as when performing Admin functions) you may need to increase these settings.
magic_quotes_gpc = Off Turn off PHP's Magic Quotes function.
default_charset = "utf-8" Specify the default character encoding.
mbstring.func_overload = 0 Tiki will not work properly with mbstring.func_overload = 7.
Unable to load the jQuery Sortable Tables feature.


The location of the php.ini file may vary, depending on your operating sytem. Some common locations include:

  • /etc/php.ini
  • /etc/php/php.ini
  • /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini (Debian)
  • \windows\system\php.ini (Windows)


Notes:

  1. If safemode is on you may need safe_mode_allowed_env_vars = TZ in php.ini.
  2. To run PHP5 on 1and1.com add the following lines to your _htaccess file (Tiki 3):
    AddType x-mapp-php5 .php
    AddHandler x-mapp-php5 .php
    uncomment line 29 and 30 then rename in .htaccess

Optional Software or Libraries

Some Tiki features require the following additional software or libraries:

FeatureAdditional Requirements
The ZipArchive class for php must be installed for some features such as XML Wiki Import-Export and PluginArchiveBuilder
Image processing, used for thumbnail generation, dynamic chart generation, and to prevent bot/automatic registration.Use either GD Library 1.5 (or higher) or ImageMagick. ImageMagick is included, by default with PHP 4.3+
Manage and display maps as a GeoCMS (Geospatial Content Management System).Mapserver 4.6+
Rewrite Tiki's default URLsUse the Apache Clean URLs to create shorter, or custom, URLs.
Elasticsearch See Elasticsearch page (requirements section)

Alias

History

Advanced
Information Version
Marc Laporte 237
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Jonny Bradley updated max php for 22.x and 23.x 236
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Marc Laporte 235
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Marc Laporte 234
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Marc Laporte No requirement change between 22 and 23 233
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Marc Laporte 232
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Marc Laporte This will reduce pain 231
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Marc Laporte 230
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rjsmelo 229
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Bernard Sfez / Tiki Specialist Updating infos for PHP and Tiki 22. Adding missing rows for MySQL. MySQL under 5.7 throw an error with Tiki 21. 228
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luciash d' being 🧙 added nginx 227
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luciash d' being 🧙 226
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luciash d' being 🧙 225
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luciash d' being 🧙 known issue note 224
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Marc Laporte Supported means it generally works and we'll fix any bugs, which we will 223
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drsassafras minor formatting 222
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drsassafras fixing error again (hopefully) 221
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drsassafras added MySQL exact version numbers 220
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drsassafras 219
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drsassafras 218
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drsassafras Cleaned up tiki required extensions 217
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drsassafras Removing outdated info. Can still access via history 216
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drsassafras Table consistency 215
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fatiki added php.ini location for Linux systems as of php v. 7 214
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Yves Kipondo 213
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drsassafras updated tiki 21 to php version 7.2 212
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Philippe Cloutier oops, move my latest addition where it belongs 211
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Philippe Cloutier Session storage location: better document 210
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Philippe Cloutier PHP: document incompatibility between PHP 7.2 and Tiki 18 209
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Marc Laporte 208
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Marc Laporte 207
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Marc Laporte AutoTOC 206
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Marc Laporte Tiki 20 is in Beta and it didn't change 205
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Philippe Cloutier Tiki 19 works with MariaDB 10.1 on my PC. 204
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Philippe Cloutier There is no version of Maria DB inferior to 5 203
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Philippe Cloutier no wonder why I couldn't align the img right... avoid having the image left so the list's indentation is stable. and actually have a list 202
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Philippe Cloutier img Plugin modified by editor. 201
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Philippe Cloutier img Plugin modified by editor. 200
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Philippe Cloutier img Plugin modified by editor. 199
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Bernard Sfez / Tiki Specialist Removing duplicate Alias (I never edited this page before unlike the lastmod pretend) 198
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Bernard Sfez / Tiki Specialist Tiki19 is now released 197
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luciash d' being 🧙 remarksbox Plugin modified by editor. 196
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luciash d' being 🧙 195
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Philippe Cloutier Database: add details 194
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Philippe Cloutier announce Tiki 19 minimum 193
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Philippe Cloutier Additional Libraries: add PHP DOM extension (discussed on https://sourceforge.net/p/tikiwiki/mailman/message/36367408/ ) 192
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Philippe Cloutier Database: qualify level of support for MariaDB (considering issue #6544) 191
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Philippe Cloutier mbstring: Mention symfony/polyfill-mbstring 190
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Philippe Cloutier PHP: bump max supported version to 7.0 for Tiki 18 189
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Philippe Cloutier Comment "session.save_handler = files", added in version 3 without explanation. This can have value "user" in Tiki 15. 188
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