TWiki System Requirements

Server and client requirements for TWiki 01-Feb-2003 (pending release)

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 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.

Required Server Environment
Resource	Unix	Windows*
Perl	5.005_03 or higher (5.6.1 recommended, 5.8.0 not recommended yet, see TWiki:Codev.UsingPerl58OnRedHat8)
Non-standard Perl modules	`Net::SMTP` (or `sendmail`)	`Net::SMTP`, `MIME::Base64`, `Digest::SHA1`
RCS	5.7 or higher (including GNU `diff`) 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. Install on PATH if not included with RCS (check version with `diff -v`)
Other external programs	`ls, fgrep, egrep`
Cron/scheduler	`cron`	`cron` equivalents
Web server	Apache 1.3 is well supported; Apache 2.0 is not recommended yet (see TWiki:Support.FailedAuthenticationWithApache2OnWinNT). For other servers, CGI support, authentication, extended path required

* 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.

Client Requirements

The TWiki 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

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.
- Plugins included in the TWiki distribution do not add requirements.

-- MikeMannix - 12 Jan 2002

----- Revision r1.27 - 30 Jan 2003 - 08:59 GMT - PeterThoeny