Before installing Helpnest, ensure your server meets the requirements below. Helpnest requires PostgreSQL with pgvector for AI vector search.
Danger
MySQL and other databases are not supported. The application requires PostgreSQL 16+ with pgvector enabled.
System Requirements
| Requirement | Minimum |
|---|---|
| PHP Version | 8.2 or higher |
| Database | PostgreSQL 16+ with pgvector |
| Web Server | Apache (mod_rewrite) or Nginx |
| Memory Limit | 512 MB (1 GB recommended) |
| Execution Time | 300 seconds (max_execution_time) |
| Upload Max Size | 64 MB |
| Disk Space | 1 GB |
| Composer | 2.x |
Required PHP Extensions
| Extension | Purpose |
|---|---|
| BCMath | Arbitrary precision mathematics |
| Ctype | Character type classification |
| Fileinfo | File type detection |
| GD | Image processing |
| Intl | Internationalisation |
| Mbstring | Multibyte string support |
| OpenSSL | Secure connections and encryption |
| PDO | Database abstraction layer |
| PDO PGSQL | PostgreSQL database driver |
| PGSQL | Native PostgreSQL functions |
| Tokenizer | PHP code parsing |
| XML | XML document handling |
Additional Dependencies
| Dependency | Purpose | Installation |
|---|---|---|
| Tesseract OCR | Document OCR for AI training | apt install tesseract-ocr |
| Poppler Utils | PDF parsing and text extraction | apt install poppler-utils |
| Composer | PHP dependency management | apt install composer |
Note
OCR and Poppler are required for training the AI model with documents, images, and PDFs.
Vector Database Setup
Helpnest uses pgvector for semantic search. After installing PostgreSQL:
CREATE EXTENSION vector;
Verify the extension is available:
psql -U your_user -d your_db -c "SELECT * FROM pg_extension WHERE extname = 'vector';"
Recommended Hosting
| Provider | Plan | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Vultr | Optimised Cloud (8 GB RAM) | PostgreSQL-friendly, SSD storage |
| DigitalOcean | Premium Droplet (8 GB RAM) | Managed PostgreSQL available |
| Linode | Dedicated CPU (8 GB) | Good for AI workloads |
| AWS EC2 | t3.large | Scalable, RDS PostgreSQL compatible |
Verification
php -v
php -m | grep -E "bcmath|ctype|fileinfo|gd|intl|json|mbstring|openssl|pdo|pgsql|tokenizer|xml"
psql --version
tesseract --version
pdftotext --version
Still stuck?
Our support team is ready to help you get set up.