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MageBridge - System requirements

These installation steps assume you have already installed Joomla!TM and MagentoTM on your website. Make sure you understand how to use both applications first, before starting with MageBridgeTM.

First make sure your system meets the minimum requirements for Joomla! and Magento:

Disclaimer

We do not support MageBridge-environments that do not meet-up to the requirements on this page. Also, we do not support problems that arise because of limited resources within the hosting environment. If the hosting environment is not tuned for Magento, we do not support MageBridge running on it.

Minimum software requirements

Before purchasing MageBridge, make sure your web environment matches the following requirements.

  • Linux hosting platform
  • Apache with mod_rewrite, mod_xml and mod_zlib
  • MySQL 4.1.20 or higher, with InnoDb support
  • PHP version 5.2.8 or higher (see below)
  • Joomla! 1.5.12 or higher
  • Magento 1.3 or higher

Minimum system requirements

The Magento System Requirements states you will need at least 256Mb of memory available. For Joomla! you will need at least 32Mb. When Joomla! and Magento are installed in the same webdirectory, you will need at least 288Mb - this is the minimum requirement. It's quite normal to assign 512Mb.

Networking requirements

Joomla! needs to be able to contact Magento through HTTP. This lays down the following requirements:

  • Joomla! needs to know the hostname of Magento through either DNS or hosts-file
  • Outgoing HTTP-access from Joomla! to Magento should not be blocked by a firewall

Required PHP extensions

The following PHP-extensions need to be enabled in both web-environments:

  • APC (see below)
  • CURL (see below)
  • SimpleXML
  • JSON

Note that these are the requirements. We assume you are also following the guidelines given by Joomla and Magento.

When you install the MageBridge installer-program for Joomla! these settings will be automatically checked before installing the complete version of MageBridge. The MageBridge installer-program is available for free, however offers no real functionality except for the upgrade to the complete version of MageBridge.

About APC

APC (Advanced PHP Caching) is highly recommended for running Magento and therefor MageBridge. When you have a webshop, it is important that it is able to run fast and smooth. Without APC this will not be the case. APC is not mandatory and MageBridge (and Magento) will run without it. You can also use alternative PHP accelerators like ZendOptimizer+, memcache or eAccelerator. However, we will not support performance problems unless a PHP accelerator is used.

About CURL

CURL is being used to communicate between Joomla! and Magento. Be warned that we have seen many hosting environments in which PHP is upgraded frequently but CURL never. This will corrupt the communication between PHP and CURL. In a good hosting environment not only PHP must be kept up-to-date but CURL as well.

Minimum PHP settings

The following PHP-settings are required in both web-environments:

  • allow_url_fopen = On
  • safe_mode = Off

Recommended MySQL settings

Magento requires much more resources than Joomla! does, which means MageBridge will not run successfully unless these resources are available. We highly recommend tuning MySQL to increase performance. This is mostly accomplished by editing /etc/my.cnf by either yourself or your hosting party.

  • query_cache_size = 16M or higher
  • max_allowed_packet = 16M or higher
  • connect_timeout = 30 or higher
  • wait_timeout = 30 or higher

Joomla! requirements

Joomla! 1.5 is required to run MageBridge, but we also highly recommend SEF URLs to be working with a .htaccess file in place. This also implicates an Apache webserver (with mod_rewrite) is being used.

Where to install Joomla! and Magento?

With MageBridge the only important thing for installing Joomla! and Magento is that they can talk to each other through HTTP. Both applications could be installed on the same domain in the same directory, on seperate domains, or even on seperate webservers. Make sure the domain-names of both Joomla! as Magento are accessible from the Internet as well from the webserver itself.

Also note that if you want the MageBridge webshop to become accessible through an URL "shop", do not install Magento in a directory with the same name.

About versions

We recommend keeping your Joomla! installation at the latest version at all times. Most Joomla! 1.5.x releases involve minor functionality changes, but - more importantly - security fixes. As soon as Joomla! 1.6 Stable is on the way, we will make efforts into making MageBridge compatible with it.

Keeping your Magento installation up-to-date is a bit more complex than with Joomla!. We recommend upgrading in a test-environment, before putting it into production. With minor releases (1.3.X) we will be able to fix MageBridge-issues due to Magento-upgrades quickly, but with major releases (1.X) this could be more complicated. We urge you to use a test-environment for Magento.

The Performance tuning with MageBridge guide helps you to further optimize Joomla! and Magento - and thus MageBridge.

Tutorials on MageBridge basics

Tutorials on MageBridge administration

 

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