TWiki System Requirements

Server and client requirements

Low client and server base requirements are core features that keep TWiki widely deployable, particularly across a range of browser platforms and versions. Many Plugins and contrib modules exist which enhance and expand TWiki's capabilities; they may have additional requirements.

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.

Resource	Required Server Environment *
Perl	5.005_03 or higher (5.8.4 or higher is recommended)
RCS	5.7 or higher (including GNU diff) Optional, TWiki includes a pure perl implementation of RCS that can be used instead (although it's slower)
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) Must be the version used by RCS, to avoid problems with binary attachments - RCS may have hard-coded path to diff
GNU patch	For upgrades only: GNU patch is required when using the TWiki:Codev.UpgradeTWiki script
Other external programs	fgrep, egrep
Cron/scheduler	• Unix: cron • Windows: cron equivalents
Web server	Apache is well supported; see TWiki:TWiki.InstallingTWiki#OtherWebServers for other servers

Required CPAN Modules

The following Perl modules are used by TWiki:

Module	Preferred version
Algorithm::Diff (included)
CGI::Carp	>=1.26
Config	>=0
Cwd	>=3.05
Data::Dumper	>=2.121
Error (included)
File::Copy	>=2.06
File::Find	>=1.05
File::Spec	>=3.05
File::Temp	(included with perl 5.6 and later)
FileHandle	>=2.01
IO::File	>=1.10
Text::Diff (included)
Time::Local	>=1.11

Optional CPAN Modules

The following Perl modules may be used by TWiki:

Module	Preferred version	Description
CGI::Cookie	>=1.24	Used for session support
CGI::Session	>=3.95	Used for session support
Digest::base
Digest::SHA1
Jcode		Used for I18N support with perl 5.6
Locale::Maketext::Lexicon	>=0	Used for I18N support
Net::SMTP	>=2.29	Used for sending mail
Unicode::Map		Used for I18N support with perl 5.6
Unicode::Map8		Used for I18N support with perl 5.6
Unicode::MapUTF8		Used for I18N support with perl 5.6
Unicode::String		Used for I18N support with perl 5.6
URI		Used for configure

Most of them will probably already be available in your installation. You can check version numbers with the configure script, or if you're still trying to get to that point, check from the command line like this:

perl -e 'use FileHandle; print $FileHandle::VERSION."\n"'

Client Requirements

The TWiki standard installation has relatively low browser requirements:

• HTML 3.2 compliant
• Cookies, if persistent sessions are required

CSS and Javascript are used in most skins, although there is a low-fat skin (Classic skin) available that minimises these requirements. Some skins will require more recent releases of browsers. The default skin (Pattern) is tested on IE 6, Safari, and Mozilla 5.0 based browsers (such as Firefox).

You can easily select a balance of browser capability versus look and feel. Try the installed skins at TWikiSkinBrowser and more at TWiki:Plugins.SkinPackage.

Important note about TWiki Plugins

• Plugins can require just about anything - browser-specific functions, stylesheets (CSS), Java applets, cookies, specific Perl modules,... - check the individual Plugin specs.
  • Note: Plugins included in the TWiki distribution do not add requirements, except for the CommentPlugin which requires Perl 5.6.1.

Related Topics: AdminDocumentationCategory