Installation - Requirements

From Zen Cart(tm) Wiki

Requirements

The minimum suggested server requirements for running Zen Cart™ v1.3.x and higher are:

• PHP 4.3.2 or higher (PHP 4.4.x for optimal performance),

• Apache 1.3.x

• MySQL 3.2x or higher

• Register Globals may be on or off

• PHP Safe_Mode = off (recommended)

The ideal server configuration is:

• PHP 4.4.x or higher

• Apache 1.3.x or 2.x

• MySQL 3.2x or 4.0.x (with significant memory resources devoted to the MySQL processes)

• Register Globals = off

• PHP Safe_Mode = off

Caveats

CURL 

Many shipping and payment modules require CURL to be installed and compiled with php.

SSL & HTTPS 

Support for HTTPS may be required depending on the payment methods being accepted. The use of SSL during account creation and checkout is recommended.

PHP as CGI 

If you are running on a Unix/Linux host with PHP running as CGI, you may have some difficulties. In Linux, it is recommended to use PHP as an Apache module, not as a CGI app, unless you have server-level control of configuring the CGI options and advanced knowledge of tuning the server to function optimally.

Zen Cart™ 

Using Zen Cart™ v1.3.x+ with a PHP version lower than 4.3.2 will result in problems with maintaining sessions.

PHP5 

PHP5 is not officially supported by Zen Cart™ v1.3.x at this time since it hasn't been exhaustively tested; however, many shopowners are successfully running their shops on servers using PHP5. The development of v1.3.x is using constructs that are more compliant with PHP5 but full specific testing for PHP5 is not a primary goal of the 1.3.x series. Zen Cart™ v2.0.0 is built on PHP5, and will require PHP 5.2 as a minimum.

MySQL 4.1.x 

MySQL 4.1.x uses an encryption scheme that is not 100% supported by PHP4 on older servers, so may not work with Zen Cart™ v1.3.x unless your host has upgraded their support for compatibility between the two systems.

MySQL 5 

MySQL 5 has some tighter constraints on various SQL statement constructs. Zen Cart™ v1.2.x requires some coding alterations in order to work in a MySQL5 environment. Zen Cart™ v1.3.x has repaired these constructs and thus is expected to be compatible. Exhaustive testing has not yet been completed. You can use a simple patch on v1.2.x until then.