User guide

Requirements August 08, 2008 / Updated: June 07, 2025

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Content

  1. Server requirements
  2. Requirements for older versions
  3. Browser requirements

Server requirements

To operate the current Zenphoto version efficiently, you need (our setup script will also tell you about possible problems):

  • A web server with at least 25Mb of free space (plus free space for images and cache files)
  • Apache 2* (it may work without problems on other server systems like nginx, IIS or lighttpd but we have not tested these.)
  • PHP 7, 8 - 8.4 (8+ strongly recommended), PHP 8.4 generally tested but there might be quirks
  • Zenphoto expects native PHP core extensions to be available and may not specifically check or warn about these. Certain missing  PHP bundled or externral extensions recommended or required will be noted on setup as usual. General info: https://www.php.net/manual/en/extensions.membership.php. It is recommend that you have tat least the following PHP extensions and settings:
    • One of these graphics libaries for image resizing:
      • GD 2+ graphics library (usually built in on servers)
      • Imagick graphics libary 6.3.8/Imagick 3.0.0+
    • magic_quotes off (recommended - gone in PHP 8 anyway!)
    • register globals off (required)
    • cURL extension (required)
    • gettext extension (optional, required if you plan to use Zenphoto's translation/multilingual capabilites - note that your server must have the locales for the languages installed you intend to use) 
    • iconv and mbstring extensions (strongly recommended if you are using a none English language with lots of special characters)
    • tidy extension (strongly recommended to properly truncate text content containing HTML)
    • mod_rewrite (strongly recommended) – Note that non Apache servers, not supporting htaccess, may require extra setup
  • MySQL 5+* (5.5.3+ recommended) or MariaDB equivalent (tested up to 10.11) – MySQL 8 probably generally compatible but not yet tested
    • Appropriate user account rights. (Setup will note if you do not have sufficient rights.)
    • utf8 or utf8mb4 table and column collations

*Zenphoto is developed and tested on Apache environment.

Requirements for older versions

If you really still have an install with of an old version step by step upgrades are recommended (see https://www.zenphoto.org/news/installation-and-upgrading/ for details). Here is a list with the general PHP and MySQL requirements for old versions:

  • v1.2: PHP 4.1.x
  • v1.2.6: PHP 4.4.8 – 5 / MySQL 4+
  • v1.3: PHP 4.4.8 – 5.2 / MySQL 4 – 5
  • v1.4.2: PHP 5 – 7 / MySQL 5+
  • v1.5: PHP 5.3 - 7.2+ / MySQL 5/5.5.3+ (recommended)
  • v1.6: PHP 7 – 8.1 (8.2) - PHP 8+ recommended
  • v1.6.1: PHP 7 – 8.2
  • v1.6.3 PHP 7 – 8.2 (8.3)
  • v1.6.5 PHP 7 – 8.3 (8.4)
  • v1.6.6 PHP 7 (7.4 preferred) – 8.4

Browser requirements

A current version of Firefox, Chrome, Safari or Edge is recommended. Internet Explorer is not supported anymore. Javascript must be enabled and for some browser functionalitly cookies should also be enabled.

Really old versions of above browsers may not work properly. We do not test older browsers.

Creative Commons LicenseThis text by www.zenphoto.org is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Code examples are released under the GPL v2 or later license

For questions and comments please use the forum or discuss on the social networks.