> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.chamilo.org/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.chamilo.org/administration-guide/admin-guide/installation/server-requirements.md).

# Server Requirements

Before installing Chamilo 3.0, verify that your server meets the following requirements.

## Software Requirements

### PHP

| Requirement     | Minimum | Recommended |
| --------------- | ------- | ----------- |
| **PHP version** | 8.3     | 8.5         |

### Required PHP Extensions

| Extension                                                  | Purpose                                                                                          |
| ---------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **bcmath**                                                 | Arbitrary-precision math                                                                         |
| **ctype**                                                  | Character type checking                                                                          |
| **curl**                                                   | HTTP requests (API integrations, external services)                                              |
| **dom**, **libxml**, **simplexml**, **xml**, **xmlreader** | XML parsing and DOM handling (SCORM, RSS, SOAP, LTI)                                             |
| **exif**                                                   | Reading image metadata (e.g. auto-orienting uploaded photos)                                     |
| **fileinfo**                                               | MIME type detection for uploaded files                                                           |
| **gd**                                                     | Image processing (thumbnails, CAPTCHA)                                                           |
| **iconv**                                                  | Character set conversion                                                                         |
| **intl**                                                   | Internationalization (date, number, and string formatting)                                       |
| **json**                                                   | JSON encoding/decoding                                                                           |
| **ldap**                                                   | LDAP connector. Although you will probably not use LDAP, Chamilo requires it                     |
| **mbstring**                                               | Multibyte string handling (UTF-8 support)                                                        |
| **openssl**                                                | Cryptographic operations (HTTPS, password hashing, JWT tokens)                                   |
| **pdo**, plus **pdo\_mysql** or **pdo\_pgsql**             | Database connectivity (install the driver matching your database)                                |
| **soap**                                                   | SOAP web service handling                                                                        |
| **zip**                                                    | Handling ZIP archives (SCORM packages, bulk imports/exports)                                     |
| **zlib**                                                   | Compression used internally by several dependencies                                              |
| **apcu**                                                   | User-level caching (recommended, checked but not enforced by the installer)                      |
| **opcache**                                                | Opcode caching (strongly recommended for performance, checked but not enforced by the installer) |
| **xapian**                                                 | Full-text search (optional, only if you use search)                                              |

### Database

| Database    | Minimum Version | Recommended    |
| ----------- | --------------- | -------------- |
| **MariaDB** | 10.0            | 10.4 or higher |
| **MySQL**   | 5.7             | 8.0 or higher  |

MariaDB versions older than 10.2.2 (and MySQL versions older than 5.7) need large index/prefix support enabled manually in the server configuration before installing Chamilo.

### Web Server

| Server     | Notes                                                                                                                                                             |
| ---------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Apache** | Requires `mod_rewrite` (and `ssl`, `headers`, `expires`) enabled. Chamilo ships a sample vhost at `public/main/install/apache.dist.conf`.                         |
| **Nginx**  | Requires manual configuration for URL rewriting — Chamilo does not ship a sample Nginx config. See the Symfony Nginx documentation for a reference configuration. |

### Build Tools

| Tool                        | Purpose                                                                                              |
| --------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Composer** (^2.8)         | PHP dependency management. Required to install Chamilo's PHP libraries.                              |
| **Node.js** (20+ LTS)       | JavaScript runtime. Required to build frontend assets.                                               |
| **Yarn** (^4, via Corepack) | JavaScript package manager used to build frontend assets (`yarn install`, `yarn encore production`). |

## Hardware Requirements

| Resource       | Minimum                 | Recommended                                                                                   |
| -------------- | ----------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **RAM**        | 4 GB                    | 8 GB or more (building frontend assets from source needs at least 4 GB on its own)            |
| **CPU**        | 2 vCPUs                 | 2+ cores                                                                                      |
| **Disk space** | 4 GB (application only) | 20+ GB (including uploaded content); building from source needs \~10 GB free during the build |
| **Disk type**  | HDD                     | SSD (significantly improves database and cache performance)                                   |

These are baseline figures from Chamilo's own installation guide. Actual requirements depend on the number of concurrent users and the volume of content hosted.

## Operating System

| OS          | Notes                                                                    |
| ----------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Linux**   | Recommended. Ubuntu 24.04 LTS+, Debian 12+, AlmaLinux 9+, or equivalent. |
| **Windows** | Possible but not thoroughly tested. Use WSL2 for development.            |
| **macOS**   | Development only / untested.                                             |

## Network Requirements

* A domain name pointing to your server.
* An SSL/TLS certificate for HTTPS (Let's Encrypt provides free certificates).
* Outbound SMTP access if sending emails directly (or use a third-party email service).
* Port 443 (HTTPS) and optionally port 80 (HTTP, for redirect to HTTPS).

## Checking Requirements

After placing the Chamilo source on your server, you can check your PHP configuration directly:

```bash
php -m          # List installed extensions
php -i          # Full PHP info
```

## Tips

* **Use PHP-FPM** with Apache or Nginx for better performance than mod\_php.
* **Separate your database** onto a dedicated server for platforms expecting more than 500 concurrent users.
* **Use SSD storage** -- Database-heavy applications like Chamilo benefit significantly from fast disk I/O.