These system requirements for X-Cart 4.4.x
Note from Just X-Cart Australia: We can assure you that not only are we
X-Cart first and only Australian X-Cart recommended hosting provider, but that
our dedicated X-Cart servers are more than suitably resourced to accommodate the
sites hosted. Further to this we adhere to ALL hosting recommendations as listed
below.
Operating system

Hardware
Hardware required to achieve a good X-Cart performance depends on many factors,
however the most important are Catalog size and Traffic. The table below
provides recommended hardware specifications.
|
Traffic |
---|
Catalog size |
up to 100 visitors/day |
up to 5,000 visitors/day |
up to 15,000 visitors/day |
---|
100
SKUs | a good
shared/cloud hosting | VPS / Dedicated
server - Dual-core CPU
- RAM 1 GB
- 250 Mbps connection
| Dedicated server - Dual CPU dual-core
- RAM 8 GB, SAS HDD
- 500 Mbps connection
|
5,000 SKUs | a good
shared/cloud hosting | VPS / Dedicated
server - Dual-core CPU
- RAM 2 GB
- 250 Mbps connection
| Dedicated server - Dual CPU dual-core
- RAM 16 GB, SAS HDD
- 500 Mbps connection
|
50,000 SKUs | VPS hosting - Dual-core CPU
- RAM 2 GB
- 100 Mbps connection
| Dedicated server - Dual-core CPU
- RAM 4 GB, SAS HDD
- 250 Mbps connection
| Dedicated server - Dual CPU quad core
- RAM 16 GB, SAS HDD
- 500 Mbps connection
|
PHP configuration
PHP version
Version 4.4.0 - 5.x.
PHP5 support is recommended but not required.
php.ini settings
required values:
safe_mode = off
file_uploads = on
magic_quotes_sybase = off
sql.safe_mode = off
allow_url_fopen = on
ini_set = on
memory_limit >= 32M
recommended values:
disable_functions = NULL
post_max_size >= 2M
upload_max_filesize >= 2M
max_execution_time >= 30
memory_limit >= 64M
max_input_time >= 30
sendmail_from = ...@domain.com (an email address, from which
sending mail is allowed)
PHP extensions
required:
PCRE
MySQL
if using PHP4, iconv must be enabled
recommended:
FTP - to be able to upload files to GoogleBase
Zlib - for data compression on the fly
GDLib 2.0 or better - required for automatic generation of
product thumbnails form product images, for the 'Image Verification' module and
for cache generation in the 'Detailed Product Images' module.
GDLib must be compiled with libJpeg (ensure that PHP is
configured with the option --with-jpeg-dir=DIR, where DIR is the directory where
libJpeg is installed).
Mcrypt - highly recommended to speed up the Blowfish data
encrypting process
xml/Expat - for Intershipper, UPS or USPS shipping modules.
cURL - for some of the online credit card processing modules
and for shipping modules.
OpenSSL - for iDEAL Advanced and iDEAL RaboBank Professional
payment modules.
iconv - for AJAX functionality.
Other recommendations
PHP should be compiled with the --enable-memory-limit option (strongly
recommended).
PHP should be compiled with the --enable-mbstring option. mbstring is designed
to handle languages which use multibyte character encodings. For more
information and a list of supported encodings, see the corresponding section of
PHP manual. If you plan to use languages that require UTF-8 encoding, set the
mbstring.func_overload value to 7.
If you wish to use an external mail program (like qmail or postfix) instead of
the PHP mail() function, this mail program must be installed and configured.
If you wish to use an SMTP server instead of the PHP mail() function to send
mail from the store, the SMTP server must be installed and configured.
PHP function exec() must be allowed for the correct functioning of most of the
CC payment processing modules used with X-Cart (SaferPay, Credomatic,
CyberSource, HSBC, Ogone, Ogone Web, PayBox, PaySystems Client, VaultX), HTTPS
modules (Net::SSLeay, CURL, OpenSSL, https_cli), GnuPG/PGP.
PHP functions popen() & pclose() must be allowed for the correct functioning of
some HTTPS modules (CURL, Net::SSLeay, OpenSSL, https_cli), payment modules (Saferpay,
CyberSource), SMTP mailer (PHPMailer).
For help on PHP configuration settings, visit http://www.php.net.
MySQL configuration
MySQL version
Supported versions: 4.0.18 - 5.X
Minimum versions:
4.0.18 for MySQL 4.0.x
4.1.2 for MySQL 4.1.x
Not recommended versions: 5.0.50, 5.0.51 (These versions contain some known bugs
that may prevent X-Cart from operating correctly).
MySQL server settings
MAX_CONNECTIONS >= 200 (required; try using a lower setting when having MySQL
issues on a server with less than 4GB of RAM)
MySQL user privileges
Required basic privileges:
select_priv
insert_priv
update_priv
delete_priv
lock_tables_priv
index_priv
Privileges, required for software installation/upgrade:
create_priv
drop_priv
alter_priv
MySQL user limitations
Required values:
MAX_QUESTIONS - no limitations
MAX_UPDATES - no limitations
MAX_QUERIES_PER_HOUR - no limitations
MAX_USER_CONNECTIONS - no limitations
Recommended values:
max_allowed_packet - 8-16 MB recommended
wait_timeout - minimum 7200 (28800 recommended)
Note: a 'Lost connections' error may appear if the values of
the options 'max_allowed_packet' and 'wait_timeout' are too low.
Apache configuration
Apache is the recommended web server. The settings described below refer to
Apache only.
Distributed configuration file
The name of the file must be ".htaccess" (AccessFileName .htaccess).
You must have sufficient permissions to change the settings of the web directory
via the .htaccess file (AllowOverride = ALL).
PHP running mode
If PHP is installed as CGI, it must be compiled with --enable-force-cgi-redirect
(without --enable-discard-path).
Apache modules
Basic modules:
mod_dir - is required for correct operation of DirectoryIndex
mod_access - is required for correct operation of Deny From
All and Allow From All
mod_auth - is required for correct operation of HTTP
authentication (HTTP authentication is used in Google Checkout module for
additional Admin area protection)
Recommended modules
mod_userdir - is required for access to the website via a
temporary URL (http://IP/~user).
mod_rewrite - is required for correct operation of the Clean
URLs functionality.
mod_expires - is required to set up file caching.
mod_gzip / mod_deflate - is required for page compression.
HTTPS settings
DocumentRoot directories for HTTP and HTTPS must be the same.
PHP on HTTP and HTTPS must be run under the same user
account.
The php.ini file must be the same for HTTP and HTTPS.
Disk space
A fresh installation of X-Cart 4.3.0 uses at least 30 megabytes of disk space
(if installed without add-ons). In addition to that, some disk space will be
needed for X-Cart's cache data, image files (if you choose to store them on the
file system) and customizations.
MySQL space
The amount of space required for X-Cart database depends on the number of
products, customers and orders that will be stored there. Accordingly, database
space requirements may vary from as little as 5 megabytes for small shops to
over 500 megabytes for large stores.
Advanced requirements and recommended settings
Network settings
Outgoing connections must be allowed for ports 80, 443 and 1129. Some payment
and shipping systems may require additional ports.
The server firewall must allow loopback connections. This is required for HTML
catalog feature.
External domains must be resolved on the level of PHP as well as on the system
level. Such PHP functions as gethostbyaddr and gethostbyname must work without
limitations.
Domains hosted on a hosting with localhost must be resolved to an external IP
address if the server is behind NAT.
Other requirements
A valid SSL certificate from the list of SSL certificates accepted by Google
Checkout is required for correct operation of Google Checkout module.
Windows or Linux operating system is required for HSBC payment method.
The following functionality requires no less than 64 MB of memory: backing
up/restoring the database, import and product modification.
Important! These are the basic system requirements. Some specific settings may
be needed for different store configurations.
Client-side requirements
JavaScript
The users of X-Cart's back end must have JavaScript enabled in the web browser.
For the users of X-Cart's storefront, enabled JavaScript is recommended:
JavaScript is not required for the basic storefrontfunctionality: a user can
register, log in, add a product to cart and check out without JavaScript
enabled; however, anything above that is not guaranteed to work without enabled
JavaScript. For example, although a user will be able to buy a regular product
with JavaScript disabled, they will not be able to buy a configurable product or
a gift certificate.
If a user enters the store with JavaScript disabled, X-Cart displays a message
asking this user to enable JavaScript in the web browser.
Cookies
Both the users of X-Cart's storefront and back end must set their web browser
to accept cookies. If a user enters the store using a browser that does not
accept cookies and attempts to perform an operation that requires enabled
cookies, X-Cart displays a message asking this user to enable cookies in the web
browser.
Screen resolution
Minimum required screen resolution for the storefront is 800x600
(recommended: 1024x768 or higher).
Minimum required screen resolution for the back end is 1024x768.
Browser compatibility
MS Internet Explorer 7, 8, 9
Mozilla FireFox for Windows v1.5, v2, v3
Mozilla FireFox for MacOS v2, v3
Mozilla FireFox for Linux v2, v3
Opera for Windows/FreeBSD/Linux/MacOS v9, v10
Safary for Windows/MacOS 3, 4, 5
Mozilla for Linux v1.8
Mozilla for FreeBSD v1.8
Google Chrome