Talk:Questions to ask a prospective hosting company

Aim: A simple list of questions anyone could copy & paste to their prospective host before purchasing hosting plus a list of 'acceptable/minimum' answers.

Target: Although it could apply to everyone who uses Joomla!, it would be good to target new non-technical users and make it as simple as possible for them to buy good hosting at whatever level

These would be helpful guidelines and no responsibility could be taken by Joomla! for misinformation. It is not within the scope of this list to help choose a hosting company or offer advice on type or cost.

We know there are many different types of hosting but most new users will go for shared hosting - so perhaps a list covering that is the first one to do. Joomla! 3x is in beta soon - should we make the list with 3 in mind?

Once we have a draft list, they can be reordered if necessary.

Thanks for all the help! New Joomla! users are our future :)

KISS

1. What version of PHP do you use? Answer should be 5.3.1 or newer. [Maybe ask for 5.3.6 instead?)

2. (if you plan to use MySQL) Is InnoDB as a MySQL storage engine available? Answer should be yes [Alternatively we could ask for at least MySQL 5.5]

3. Are files uploaded through FTP writeable through PHP without setting permissions to 777? Answer should be yes.

4. Is your default database MYSQLi [?]

5. Is display_errors enabled? Answer should be no. More information

6. Are directory indexes disabled? Answer should be yes. More information