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---# TWiki System Requirements

_Server and client requirements for TWiki 01-Sep-2004_

Low client and server requirements are core features that keep TWiki widely deployable, particularly across a range of browser platforms and versions.

---++ Server Requirements

TWiki is written in Perl 5, uses a number of shell commands, and requires [[http://www.gnu.org/software/rcs/rcs.html][RCS (Revision Control System)]], a GNU Free Software package. TWiki is developed in a basic Linux/Apache environment. It also works with Microsoft Windows, and should have no problem on any other platform that meets the requirements.

| *Resource* | *Required Server Environment ** |
| Perl | 5.005_03 or higher (5.6.1 recommended, 5.8.x does work in most cases, but see TWiki:Codev.IssuesWithPerl5dot8) |
| Non-standard Perl modules | %BULLET% Unix: =Net::SMTP= (or =sendmail=) %BB% Windows: =Net::SMTP=, =MIME::Base64=, =Digest::SHA1= %BB% Internationalisation: =Unicode::MapUTF8= &nbsp; <font size="-1">(only for non-ISO-8859-1 sites using TWiki:Codev.EncodeURLsWithUTF8 with Perl 5.6 or lower)</font> |
| RCS | 5.7 or higher (including GNU =diff=) %BR% Optional, but the all-Perl RCS replacement is not currently recommended for live sites - see TWiki:Codev.RcsLite |
| GNU =diff= | GNU =diff= 2.7 or higher is required when not using the all-Perl RcsLite.  %BR% Install on PATH if not included with RCS (check version with =diff -v=)  %BR% Must be the version used by RCS, to avoid problems with binary attachments - RCS may have hard-coded path to =diff= |
| Other external programs | =fgrep, egrep= |
| Cron/scheduler | %BULLET% Unix: =cron= %BB% Windows: =cron= equivalents |
| Web server | Apache 1.3 is well supported; Apache 2.0 is *not* recommended yet (see TWiki:Codev.IssuesWithApache2dot0). %BR% For other servers, CGI support, authentication, extended path info required; also, the =register= script is likely to need significant changes |

%X% *** _Current documentation mainly covers Linux and Apache installations. See WindowsInstallCookbook for a Windows installation guide.  See TWiki:Codev.TWikiOn for help with installation on various platforms including Unix, MacOS X, Apache =mod_perl=, web hosts, etc._

#ClientRequirements
---++ Client Requirements

The TWiki [[TWikiInstallationGuide][standard installation]] has extremely low browser requirements:

	* HTML 3.2 compliant
	* generates XHTML 1.0 pages that are compatible with HTML 3.2
	* minimal use of JavaScript in the user interface (degrades gracefully)
	* no cookies
	* no CSS (if the ClassicSkin is used)

You can easily add functionality, by customizing TWikiTemplates, for one, while tailoring the browser requirements to your situation. 

---++ Known Issues

	* The TWikiPlugins feature currently does not have compatibility guidelines for developers. Plugins can require just about anything -  browser-specific functions, stylesheets (CSS), Java applets, cookies, specific Perl modules,... - check the individual Plugin specs.
		* %H% Plugins included in the TWiki distribution do not add requirements.

-- TWiki:Main.MikeMannix - 12 Jan 2002 %BR%
-- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny - 15 Aug 2004