Requirements and Setup

Recommended Minimal Hardware Configuration

• 128 megabytes of RAM (depending the traffic expected)
• more than 60 megabytes free space on disk (source files take about 35MB and the uploaded images (attachments) go on disk)

Required Software

• PHP 4.1+, Tiki won't work with older versions of PHP
• a database server the most tiki-compliant is MySQL but options include Postgres, Oracle, Sybase, MSSQL. MySQL 4.1+ does not work with TikiWiki
• a webserver that can run PHP. Apache is strongly recommended but other webservers may work as well. These include IIS

Optional Softwares or Libs

Some Tiki features can require external additional softwares.

• image processing library for thumbnail generation, dynamic chart generation and Prevent automatic/robot registration. This can be either :
  • GD library > 1.5 and PHP compiled
  • ImageMagick but only for thumbnail generation see ImageMagick Install
    (You don't need to get those 2 libraries if you use PHP 4.3+ since they are bundled.)
• WikiGraph plugin needs GraphViz installed : see GraphViz Install
• search : For full-text search MySQL 3.23.23+, for boolean full-text search MySQL4.0.1+
• webmail : Will need at least PHP 4.2+
• PDF generation : Needs php-xml package. Consider a PHP error message about utf8_decode() upon exportation as an indication you don't have php-xml installed
• maps : PHP in CGI mode and Mapserver with a PHP module, obtainable from http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu

PHP Setup

The location of php.ini depends on your OS. Common locations for Linux are /etc/php.ini , /etc/php/php.ini , /etc/php4/php.ini and (for Gentoo) /etc/php/apache1-php4/php.ini and /etc/php/cli-php4/php.ini
Use a recent version. 4.2+ is recommended but it will work with 4.1 too (there was a session bug in 4.1.2 which has been pretty problematic).

• you don't need any specific PHP extension to install Tiki but GD is recommended and will be used if you have it. (GD is bundled by default with PHP 4.3+)
• if you want to use uploads (files, images) make sure uploads are enabled in php.ini.
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  file_uploads = On

• Tiki uses sessions (a common mechanism in PHP4) make sure that the path where PHP stores sessions (php.ini) exists and that PHP can write to that path. (special case in Shared Hosting environment where you may have no access to /tmp, in which case replace it with temp, with no slash)
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  session.save_handler = files
  session.save_path = /tmp

• it is highly recommended to increase the maximum memory size for PHP scripts from 8 MB to at least 16 MB if not 32 MB in your php.ini configuration file. Uploaded files are hashed with md5(), so watch this setting too if you upload files of several megabytes. Whilst Tiki can run in 8 MB environments for most actions eventually as you load your Tiki with content it requires more memory. Please dont use Tiki in 8Mb environments, it will cause you more problems later on. Before reporting a problem, particularly getting blank pages, change to 16 or 32 MB.
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  memory_limit = 16M

• another settings recommended to change which may cause timeouts if your wiki is large and prevent you from doing a backup through the Admin menu
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  max_execution_time = 60
  max_input_time = 60

• set magic_quotes_gpc to off in php.ini
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  magic_quotes_gpc = Off

• with PHP4.1, be sure pcre is enabled (enabled by default with PHP4.2+)
• for character encoding consistency reasons it is recommended to set
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  default_charset = "utf-8"

Apache Setup

• see Rewrite Rules for special url-rewrite configuration.

MySQL Setup

Indicated commands are for example only, in case you use command-line. If you are not very comfortable with MySQL, consider using PhpMyAdmin.

• create an empty database for storing tikiwiki data
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  mysqladmin create tikidb

• it's strongly advised you create a new mysql user for acces to the created database
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  mysql -e "grant all on tikidb.* to tikidbuser@localhost identified by 'tikipass';"
  mysql -e "flush privileges;"

Enable Large Image or File Support

Commonly, people wish to store images or files larger then the default size of 1 MB. To allow larger files, up to 16 MB, add (or request your administrator to add) the following lines to the MySQL configuration file, where 'xxx' is any number from 1 to 16:

[mysqld]
set-variable = max_allowed_packet=xxxM

Other DB setup

• perform the equivalent operations to those in the MySQL Setup section, above, with your DB