Requirements at a glance #

Supported: PHP 8.0 to 8.5. Usable without support: PHP 7.4 (Exponential 6.0.15 and later). Why Exponential supports PHP 7.4

This page is for system administrators and support staff at a hosting company who need the requirements of Exponential 6.0.x in one place, and for product managers who must check that a plan can run it. It answers: what must a server have, what is only recommended, and which part of the software checks each item. The full chapter with every reason is chapter 2 of the installation book, Requirements; this page is its summary for hosts.

Contents #

1. The table
2. Required PHP extensions
3. Databases
4. What the installer checks for you
5. What is not a requirement
6. Check a server in two minutes
7. Checklist
8. Related pages

The table #

Sources: chapter 2, the checklist and composer.json.

Required PHP extensions #

The full list, the recommended extensions and the package names per system are on PHP versions and extensions.

Databases #

Supported databases (Exponential 6.0.x), in order of preference: 1. SQLite 3 (the default) · 2. PostgreSQL · 3. MongoDB · 4. MariaDB · 5. Oracle · 6. MySQL. Microsoft SQL Server is known to be possible with additional work at this time (no driver in 6.0.x).

The practical minimums come from Database support; the setup wizard accepts older floors, which are not a promise. Details per engine are on Databases in the official order.

What the installer checks for you #

The setup wizard's System check page runs the critical tests in settings/site.ini, [SetupSettings] CriticalTests, with their parameters in settings/setup.ini. The kickstarter and exp:install run the same tests in their SystemCheck step. A failure stops the install and prints the cause and the fix, for permissions the exact chmod and chown commands (chapter 2.4).

What is not a requirement #

• A particular operating system. Exponential runs wherever PHP 8 runs; see Operating systems for hosts.
• A database server. SQLite 3, the default, is a file under var/storage/sqlite3/.
• A separate web server, when Velocity serves the site.
• Solr, Valkey or Redis. They are optional extensions for search and caching (Search backends, Valkey and Redis).

Check a server in two minutes #

php -v                          # 8.0 or later, for Velocity too
php -m                          # the extensions listed above
php -i | grep "Integer Size"    # 64 bits recommended
composer --version              # Composer 2, and the PHP it runs with

Compare php -v and php -m with the PHP information of the web server's PHP: on servers with several PHP versions they often differ. With the Velocity package installed, php bin/php/console exp:velocity ext check compares the machine with the extension set Velocity expects, and exp:velocity ext install-hint <extension> prints the package command for the system (chapter 2.3).

Checklist #

• To do: php -v shows 8.0 or later for both the web and the command line PHP (Velocity included).
• To do: Every required extension is loaded in both.
• To do: memory_limit, max_execution_time, date.timezone, file_uploads and allow_url_fopen set.
• To do: One database extension for the database the plan offers.
• To do: GD or ImageMagick installed.
• To do: Composer 2 available to the site's user.
• To do: The writable directories belong to the user that runs PHP for the site.

Related pages #

• Hosting basics
• PHP versions and extensions and PHP settings for Exponential
• Databases in the official order
• New server checklist
• Chapter 2: Requirements
• Operating system support and Database support
• Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.