Drupal PHP Requirements
Drupal is an open-source content management system that is used to build and manage websites. Drupal runs on PHP, an embedded scripting language, and dynamically pulls content from a back-end database server, such as MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server or MariaDB. In order to run Drupal successfully, there are some PHP requirements and configurations that must be set correctly after installation.
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Basic Requirements
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To install, develop and run Drupal, you must have 15 MB of disk space available to install Drupal, and access to a web server capable of running PHP, such as Apache or IIS, although Apache has more complete documentation available. You must also have a database server. Drupal is natively compatible with MySQL and MariaDB, meaning it will be compatible with these servers right after installation. You can use other database servers, such as Microsoft SQL or Oracle, but you must download additional Drupal modules in order for them to run correctly
PHP Versions
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The version of PHP you need to use depends on the version of Drupal you have. According to Drupal documentation, for versions 7 or higher, use PHP 5.3. Drupal 5 and 6 are compatible with PHP 5.2. If you have updated a Drupal site from 5 or 6 to 7, there are patches available that will allow earlier PHP versions to work on new Drupal installations.
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PHP Memory Limit
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You'll need enough disk space for PHP to support the type and number of modules – or parts – on your site. The core for Drupal 6 core requires you to have a PHP memory limit of at least 16MB, while Drupal 7 requires 32MB. You may see warning or error messages if you do not have a large enough PHP memory limit, and you will need to fix this in your PHP configuration files and verify with your host or hosting company that there is sufficient memory available.
Configuration
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For Drupal to connect and read content from your database server you must ensure that the PHP extension for connection is installed and enabled correctly. Drupal uses the PHP extension “mysql” and “mysqli” as connectors by default in most versions. You also need to set certain directives in your PHP configuration files to run Drupal successfully. These directives include the setting the default for register globals and safe modes off, as well as changing “session.cache_limiter” to “nocache.”
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References
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