Home

System requirements

Note: This article is for an old version of OpenX.

The latest OpenX documentation can be found at the following URLs:

Before you can start the installation you need to make sure your server meets the requirements described below.

Web server

Openads should be able to run on any web server which is supported by PHP.

Openads has been tested with Apache running on Linux and Windows and Microsoft IIS on Windows. Other servers might also work as long as PHP is supported, but they are currently untested and unsupported by Openads.

PHP

Openads is written in PHP and requires that PHP is installed on your server. For security reasons the use of PHP 4.4.2 or higher is highly recommended, but Openads should also work with PHP 4.0.3 or higher. Openads is also compatible with PHP 5. For more information about PHP, please look at the following website: http://www.php.net.

When using Apache it is not recommended to run PHP as a CGI binary, use the Apache module instead. The Apache module is not only much faster, it also causes less load on the server, which improves the number of impressions the server can handle.

If your are using Microsoft IIS 5.1 or 6, please try to use Fast-CGI, because the ISAPI module is not yet declared stable. If you are using Microsoft IIS 5.0 or earlier please upgrade to the latest version. If you can't upgrade to IIS 5.1 or 6, please use the less stable ISAPI module. IIS 5.0 or earlier are affected by a serious bug which interferes with the correct operation of CGI applications.

Openads is fully compatible with PHP 4.2 and 4.3, including when the register_globals setting is turned off. We've also added support for running phpAds-New when magic_quotes_gpc is turned off and magic_quotes_runtime is turned on.

TIP: Openads requires the following PHP configuration settings:

  • track_vars needs to be turned on
  • file_uploads need to be turned on
  • register_long_arrays needs to be turned on when using PHP5

Because Openads uses a MySQL database, the MySQL extension needs to be included, but in most installations this is enabled by default. Other than the MySQL extention, Openads doesn't require any exotic extensions to be present for basic operation, however some optional features may require additional extentions to be installed.

The ZLib extension is required if you want to convert hard-coded links inside compressed Flash files which are generated by Flash MX. Without the ZLib extension Openads is not able to decompress the Flash file and won't detect any hard-coded links.

The FTP extention is used to store local banners on the webserver. If the FTP extension is not present it will try to simulate the FTP extension, but this might not be as stable as using the actual extension.

MySQL

Openads requires a MySQL database to store the banner inventory and statistics. If you need more information about MySQL take a look at http://www.mysql.com.

There are no special requirements for the MySQL database server, but it is recommended to use at least MySQL 3.23.2. Openads is compatible with all table types, but if you are going to serve a lot of banners daily it is recommended to use a table type which supports row locking, such as InnoDB. Openads is also compatible with MySQL 4.1 and 5 running in strict modes, because it automatically falls back to MySQL 4 compatibility mode.

If you want to run Openads on a PostgreSQL database, please take a look at the phpPgAds project, which is an Openads port for PostgreSQL, created by one of our developers. The phpPgAds project is actively maintained and should be up to date with the latest release of Openads.