Server Requirements and Suggestions · Article

What Is Covered

• Summary
• Image Processing
• MySQL Permissions
• PHP Setting Recommendations
• Ram and CPU Requirements
• Web Server Requirements
• PHP8 Notice
• UBB.threads v7.0-v7.5.6p2 Minimum System Requirements
• UBB.threads v7.5.7 Minimum System Requirements
• UBB.threads v7.5.8-v7.5.9 Minimum System Requirements
• UBB.threads v7.6.0-v7.7.5 Minimum System Requirements
• UBB.threads v8 Minimum System Requirements
• UBB.threads v7.6 Recommended System Versions
• UBB.threads v7.7 Recommended System Versions
• UBB.threads v8.0 Recommended System Versions
• UBB.threads Historic Recommended System Versions
• Web Server Maximums


 

Summary

There are several minimum requirements to run UBB.threads, and some features have requirements of their own. In this article we attempt to "cover all of the bases".


 

Image Processing

GD or ImageMagick need to be installed and functional within PHP in order to process images.


 

MySQL Permissions

• The database user must have at least the following privileges: SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, ALTER, and INDEX.
• The database user must have the CREATE and DROP privileges during installation and upgrades.


 

PHP Setting Recommendations

New servers are rarely provisioned with tuned settings; and the default settings are limited, which may cause issues with any sort of resource usage.

The default PHP v5 settings are:
• max_execution_time = 30
• max_input_time = 60
• memory_limit = 32M
• post_max_size = 8M
• upload_max_filesize = 2M

We recommend that they be updated to:
• max_execution_time = 120
• max_input_time = 120
• memory_limit = 256M
• post_max_size = 16M
• upload_max_filesize = 6M


 

Ram and CPU Requirements

The required Ram and CPU resources for your server will be one area that would depend on the site traffic; a larger site will use more resources than a new site. Our resources for our low traffic forums (5 UBB.threads installs on server, all fairly small sites) are only 4 GB Ram with a 2 GHz Quad Core CPU; however, we have clients who're hosted on servers with 90 GB Ram on 6 Core Quad 2.6 GHz CPU's. The amount of resources really do depend on your site usage and traffic volume.

The overall goal with memory is to keep your Swap Space (Linux/Unix) or Page File (Windows) usage as low as possible during all hours of traffic (especially during your peak hours). Where the Swap Space and Page File is there to ensure your system stays online (versus say crashing and not coming back) they're not there to be utilized on a production server as a set of resources of their own; just simply to keep your system stable.

If you're having issues with slowdowns that're unbearably wrong, you should validate that you're not sending a lot of resources to swap (or the page file). You should also reference the "PHP Setting Recommendations" (above) portion of this article for some helpful tips on ensuring your PHP install is optimized for your server.


 

Web Server Requirements

UBB.threads should work with any web server (Apache, IIS, lighttpd, etc) that supports the PHP/MySQL requirements below. Please note that, if you choose to use Windows/IIS as your host operating system, our technical support services may be severely limited. Some features may not function as intended on IIS installations.


 

PHP8 Notice

UBB.threads will be compatible with PHP8 in the upcoming v8.0 builds.


 

UBB.threads v7.0-v7.5.6p2 Minimum System Requirements

• PHP v4.x
• MySQL v4.1+


 

UBB.threads v7.5.7 Minimum System Requirements

• PHP v5.x
• MySQL v5.x


 

UBB.threads v7.5.8-v7.5.9 Minimum System Requirements

• PHP v5.1.2
• MySQL v5.x


 

UBB.threads v7.6.0-v7.7.5 Minimum System Requirements

• PHP v5.4
• MySQL v5.1.5




 

UBB.threads v8.0+ Minimum System Requirements

• PHP v7.1-PHP 8.1
• MySQL v5.1.5




 

UBB.threads v7.6.0+ Recommended System Versions

• PHP v5.4+
• MySQL v5.5+




 

UBB.threads v7.7.0+ Recommended System Versions

• PHP v7+
• MySQL v5.5+




 

UBB.threads v8.0+ Recommended System Versions

• PHP v8+ (Tested with PHP 8.1)
• MySQL v5.5+


 

UBB.threads Historic Recommended System Versions

UBB.threads v6.5.3-v6.5.5

• MySQL versions 3.x and 4.x and will not run on MySQL version 5.x.
• PHP 4.1 and higher (4.3 and higher recommended)

UBB.threads v6.4-v6.5.2

• MySQL versions 3.x and 4.x and will not run on MySQL version 5.x.
• 4.0.1 and higher (4.1 and up recommended)


 

Web Server Maximums

The maximum settings that you can use on your server, running any scripts really, mostly depends on your server's hardware, operating system, also the settings that you have for each of the services you're running (such as files and connections allowed open at once, and input/output data transaction sizes, etc.).

The effective maximum table size for MySQL databases is usually determined by operating system constraints on file sizes, not by MySQL internal limits. The following table lists some examples of operating system file-size limits. This is only a rough guide and is not intended to be definitive. For the most up-to-date information, be sure to check the documentation specific to your operating system.

Operating System -- File-size Limit
GPT volumes (64-bit) -- 16 EB
Linux 2.2 (Intel 32-bit) -- 2GB (LFS: 4GB)
Linux 2.4+ (using ext3 file system) -- 4TB
MacOS X w/HFS+ -- 2TB
NetWare w/NSS file system -- 8TB
Solaris 9/10 -- 16TB
Win32 w/FAT or FAT32 -- 2GB/4GB
Win32 w/NTFS -- 2TB (possibly larger)
Posted on April 27th, 2015 · Updated on May 12th, 2022

MySQL v5.0 Documentation: Table Size Limit
Nick Duncan: Maximum MySQL Database Size?
NTFS General Information: NTFS vs FAT vs exFAT
UBB.threads Community: UBB Recommended Maximums

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