Requirements

Please Note: These requirements apply to the most recent version of NATS. If you are working with an older version of NATS, please contact Too Much Media for assistance.

Software Requirements

Software requirements for NATS. Please verify that the following programs are installed. Your host can install any missing or out-of-date programs.

Warning: NATS requires that you do not use any control panel software such as cPanel or ISPconfig, as it may cause issues. TMM is not responsible for any issues arising from ignoring this requirement.

Linux or Unix

• This includes BSD, Macintosh OS X, and Darwin operating systems.

Apache

• Apache Version 2.4

• Must not use ModSecurity or ModSecurity2.

  • For more information, please see Mod Security.

• Must not use Safe Mode.

• If open_basedir is configured, you must add the NATS install directory as well.

• Must have FollowSymLinks enabled in Apache for your NATS install.

• Apache must be able to use the directives specified in the nats/www/.htaccess file in your NATS install.

HTTP

• Ensure that HTTP Version 1.1 is compatible. You can use the following command to verify the version, which should return "1.1":

  • curl --http1.1 --write-out '%{http_version}' --silent --output /dev/null --head https://www.google.com

• Ensure that HTTP Version 2.0 is compatible. You can use the following command to verify the version, which should return "2.0":

  • curl --http2 --write-out '%{http_version}' --silent --output /dev/null --head https://www.google.com

MySQL

• MySQL Version 8.0.X (excluding specifically 8.0.17 & 8.0.18)

• Ensure that strict mode is disabled ('STRICT_TRANS_TABLES' and 'ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY' is not on for @@sql_mode)

  • innodb_strict_mode = 0

• MySQL must also be accessible from the CLI, which may require changes to the my.cnf file.

• The MySQL user must have all privileges on the NATS DB, the grant permission is optional.

• Ensure that NO_UNSIGNED_SUBTRACTION is enabled.

• Ensure that innodb_file_per_table is enabled in my.cnf.

• Ensure that triggers can be created by the NATS user.

  • Example MySQL Command:

    • GRANT CREATE TRIGGER ON <NATSDB>.* TO '<NATSUSER>'@'<DBHOST>';

      • <NATSDB> = Your NATS database

      • <NATSUSER> = The NATS user

      • <DBHOST> = Your DB host

  • If binary logging is enabled, you may need to set the log_bin_trust_function_creators variable.

    • If this is not an option, you may provide SUPER privilege to the NATS DB user.

• Ensure open_files_limit is set to at least 20,000.

• Ensure that the InnoDB engine is supported.

  • To verify if it is supported, run the following query:

    • show engines;

• Ensure support for JSON data type

• Though MariaDB has not been fully tested and is not fully supported, some clients are using it without issue.

  • See MariaDB's article on PHP 5 issues.

  • When using MariaDB we recommend using the mysqlnd extension (instead of the mysql extension) to avoid client mismatch errors.

  • When using the mysqlnd extension, increase the PHP memory limit, as mysql results are included in the memory limit with the mysqlnd extension.

MaxMind GeoIP

• You must at least have the free version of MaxMind GeoIP.

  • If you purchased a GeoIP legacy license, you can install mod_geoip or pecl geoip as detailed in our GeoIP article.

  • If not, you will need to use GeoIP2 with the new Apache module as detailed in our GeoIP2 article.

PHP

Important: PHP Version 7.0, 8.0, and 8.2 are not supported.

• PHP version 7.1 through, and including 7.4 OR 8.1.

  • Enable short_open_tag in your server's php.ini.

  • Disable session.auto_start in your server's php.ini.

  • PHP CLI (should be the same version used by Apache and should use the same php.ini)

  • Apache and the CLI must allow exec commands from PHP.

  • The following extensions must be enabled:

    • OpenSSL

      • For PHP 7.1 - 7.4, the version of OpenSSL should be equal to or greater than 1.0.1, but less than 3.0.

      • For PHP 8.1 the version of OpenSSL should be equal to or greater than 1.0.2, but less than 4.0. If you are running OpenSSL version 3, make sure that the legacy provider is enabled.

      • You can see more information on OpenSSL in the PHP OpenSSL requirements page.

    • mysqli

    • cURL with/Open SSL

    • GDlib (w/ freetype, JPEG, PNG, XPM, WEBP)

    • json

    • mbstring

    • xml

    • iconv

    • filter

  • Must have Ctype functions installed.

  • Must not use Safe Mode.

  • Must not use Suhosin.

  • Must not use blenc.

  • Suggested error reporting:

    • error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE & ~E_DEPRECATED & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED

  • Super global order must be set to the following:

    • variables_order = EGPCS or GPCS or GPC on PHP < 5.3 (for older releases of NATS)

    • request_order = GPC on PHP >= 5.3

  • ChartDirector: The PHP version of ChartDirector appropriate to your OS should be installed in the PHP Extensions directory.

  • default_charset must be set to utf-8

  • php allow_url_fopen must be enabled.

• zip and unzip must be installed in /usr/bin/

• GNU Tar with Gzip

• Git

  • Git LFS

• Ioncube version 12.0.2 or later.

• FFMPEG (version 4 or higher), including FFPROBE (version 4 or higher)

Server Requirements

NATS requires a Web-accessible domain. It should be the domain you plan on using permanently.

• For example: nats.example.com.

The NATS license will be refreshed periodically. So, the server MUST allow traffic to the license.php script from the following IP Addresses:

• 52.0.11.137

• 54.85.107.165

Your domain must be Web-accessible before we start installing NATS.

Please Note: Make sure that your installation of NATS is on its own unique domain name. If NATS shares its domain name with any other site or content that uses cookies to store information, you will run into issues.

For example, if your site's domain name is www.example.com, your NATS installation should be located on another domain, such as www.examplecash.com

We also require secure shell (SSH) access. Please give us access to the same account you use to log in to the server. The account must be allowed to create files and folders in your user directory and replace the Apache VirtualHost directory with a symlink to your user directory. The user account must also be able to create a crontab entry.

Please create a new database in the current MySQL server. Grant all access to that database to a username and password of your choosing. Please make sure that the trigger privilege is for all the tables in the database. User commands to create a database and grant all access to a specific user can be found in the MySQL documentation.

Please remove any server administration software. Server administration software might break NATS. We cannot support NATS issues arising from the interaction with server administration software.

Virtual Host Configuration

When using PHP-FPM, the following must be added to the Virtual Host for NATS:

• SetEnvIfNoCase ^Authorization$ "(.+)" HTTP_AUTHORIZATION=$1

You may need to enable the 'mod_setenvif' Apache module for this to work.

Rsync

NATS requires installing rsync on the server running your installation.

Recommended Server Settings

We recommend that you use the following settings to ensure that NATS runs optimally and avoid as much server stress and slowdown as possible. If your NATS system is getting stressed or otherwise running slowly, try using the following settings to remove on the NATS server and improve overall performance.

• 256MB memory allocation for PHP

• Allow Temp Tables to run in Memory (10MB or higher)

• Increase MySQL Cache Size (10MB or higher)

• Set up a slave database

  • Our reporting runs off the slave database, so getting reports and recording statistics will not slow down your join process when using a slave database.

  • For more information, please see the "Database Server(s)" section of our NATS Multiple Server Setup wiki article.

• Move your database to another server

  • For more information, please see the "Database Server(s)" section of our NATS Multiple Server Setup wiki article.

• Add multiple servers for load balancing

  • For more information, please see the "Load Balancing Web Files" section of our NATS Multiple Server Setup wiki article.

• Use the Memcached PHP function to speed up your database. This is highly recommended when using NATS5 and planning to have multiple administrators.

  • For more information, please see our Using Memcached For Caching wiki article.

• Install and enable mod_deflate

  • Enabling the mod_deflate Apache module can significantly improve downloads and web page access times. This module allows your server to compress output before sending it to the client over the network. This is particularly beneficial for sites using the CMS.

If you are using all of the settings listed above, and you are experiencing more stress or slowdown on your NATS server than you anticipated, please put in a support ticket.

Installation Information

After your server meets the above requirements, please reply to your install ticket saying that you have met the requirements and have the following information ready when we contact you:

• The SSH server IP or host address

• The SSH username

• The SSH password

• The SSH port

• The MySQL hostname (even if it is localhost, please specify)

• The MySQL database name

• The MySQL username

• The MySQL password

• The NATS admin and affiliate area domain

Very Important: The document root cannot be a sub-directory of another domain

• Example: You have your domain, www.somesite.com

  • NATS can be installed under nats.somesite.com

  • NATS cannot be installed under www.somesite.com/nats/

• The Apache document root for the above domain

  • Please give us written permission to overwrite the contents of this directory

We will email the above instructions to you after you purchase NATS. Please contact us if you have any questions, even before your installation begins. Your host can help you with any questions you have about the software on this list.