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Install

Requirements

FileRun runs on any operating system: Linux, macOS or Windows. It is PHP software, so what it needs is a web server with PHP and a database server, and not a particular platform. The system has to be 64-bit.

If you would rather not put those pieces together yourself, the Docker image carries all of them, already configured.

1. An HTTP Server

All HTTP servers are supported: Apache/IIS/Nginx/Caddy/Lighttpd etc.

With PHP

FileRun runs on PHP 8.3, 8.4 and 8.5. Use 8.4 or 8.5 if you can. PHP 8.6 and newer have not been tested yet.

The ionCube Loader PHP extension is required:

  • On PHP 8.3 and 8.4: ionCube Loader 14.4 or newer.
  • On PHP 8.5: ionCube Loader 15.5.0 or newer.

For details please see the PHP configuration page.

Three PHP extensions are required, and the installation refuses to continue without them: pdo_mysql, openssl and mbstring. memory_limit has to be at least 20M.

The following are not strictly required, but each one you leave out costs something:

Extension What you lose without it
zip creating and extracting ZIP archives
curl outgoing requests: update checks, the authentication plugins, the online editors
xml or xmlwriter WebDAV, the desktop sync app and the mobile apps
exif the information cameras store in image files, such as the orientation and the date
imagick thumbnails and previews generated by ImageMagick from inside PHP
opcache speed, on every single request

The proc_open function has to stay enabled for FileRun to use ImageMagick, FFmpeg, LibreOffice or any other external program. FileRun starts them through it, handing over the arguments one by one, so no shell is involved.

The installation page checks all of this and tells you what is missing on your server.

2. A database server

It should run on the same machine as the HTTP server, and connection should ideally be done via localhost (Unix socket or named pipe).

Preferably you are using the latest MySQL or MariaDB version.

The minimum required versions are:

  • MySQL: 8.4
  • MariaDB: 10.11

Optional software and libraries

  • Libvips or ImageMagick or GraphicsMagick - for thumbnails and image previews.
  • FFmpeg - for thumbnails for video files.
  • LibreOffice - for thumbnails and PDF previews of office documents: doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, odt, ods, odp, rtf and more. FileRun runs it headless, so no graphical environment is needed.
  • Java + Apache Tika + Elasticsearch - for full-text indexing and searching.

All of these come installed and configured in the Docker image.

Hardware

FileRun itself is light. It serves files and keeps a database about them; what needs resources is what you enable around it.

  • Storage is the one thing to size properly: the user files, plus room for the thumbnail and preview cache, and for the trash and the file versions if you keep them.
  • Memory. PHP needs 20M per request at the very least, and the Docker image gives it 256M. Add what the database server needs, and considerably more if you run Elasticsearch for full-text search.
  • Processor time goes into generating thumbnails, not into browsing files. Converting a video or an office document is the expensive part, and it happens once per file.

Browsers

FileRun works in a current version of Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari, on the desktop and on mobile devices.

Passkeys additionally need the installation to be served over HTTPS. See Two-factor authentication.

Mobile and desktop sync

Access via HTTPS with a trusted SSL certificate is required.