Documentation · System Requirements

Pre-Installation Checklist

Purpose

This checklist consolidates everything an agency or administrator should verify before installing ADP Car Market Hub or before flipping a staging install into production. It is intentionally practical: each item maps to a concrete check that can be done in a few minutes against the hosting environment, the WordPress site or the AutoScout24 account.

When to use this document

Use this document when you:

  • Onboard a new dealership and need a single page to validate their hosting before installing the plugin.
  • Promote a freshly built site from staging to production.
  • Audit an existing installation that has been running for a while and may have drifted from the recommended baseline.
  • Hand a site off to another agency or to the customer's internal IT team.

Overview

The checklist is grouped into nine areas. Each area has a small number of yes/no items. Treat any "no" as a blocker for production imports until it is resolved or explicitly waived.

For deeper context on any item, follow the link in the Related documents section at the bottom of this page.

Checklist

1. Hosting and runtime

  • [ ] PHP 8.1 or newer is installed and active for the WordPress site.
  • [ ] PHP memory_limit is at least 256 MB (128 MB is the absolute minimum the System & Help tab accepts).
  • [ ] PHP max_execution_time is at least 120 seconds; 300 seconds is recommended for image-heavy imports.
  • [ ] PHP extensions openssl, curl, mbstring, json and one of gd / imagick are loaded; ZipArchive is available for export bundles.
  • [ ] At least 1 GB of free disk space is available on the volume that hosts wp-content/uploads/; plan 5–25 MB per vehicle for media.
  • [ ] The web server runs Nginx, Apache or another WordPress-supported server with URL rewriting enabled.

2. WordPress

  • [ ] WordPress 6.2 or newer is installed.
  • [ ] HTTPS is active on the public site with a valid certificate.
  • [ ] Permalinks are set to anything other than "Plain" (required for the cron REST endpoint and pretty archive URLs).
  • [ ] An administrator account is available for installation and configuration.
  • [ ] No conflicting AutoScout24 / vehicle-import plugin is active.
  • [ ] A staging environment exists on the same PHP/MySQL versions as production.

3. Database

  • [ ] MySQL 5.7+ or MariaDB 10.3+ (matching WordPress's own minimums) is in use, with utf8mb4 as the default charset.
  • [ ] The WordPress database user has CREATE, ALTER, INDEX, DROP, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE and SELECT privileges so that activation can run dbDelta() for the plugin's custom tables.
  • [ ] Daily database backups are configured and have been test-restored at least once.

4. Network, API and SSL

  • [ ] Outbound HTTPS (TCP/443) is allowed from the web server to the configured AutoScout24 API host (e.g. api.autoscout24.com, api.autoscout24.ch, …) and to the AutoScout24 image CDN hosts.
  • [ ] DNS resolution from the web server itself works for the AutoScout24 hostnames.
  • [ ] The system CA bundle is current; outbound TLS interception (if any) installs its corporate root CA into the system trust store.
  • [ ] If an outbound HTTP proxy is required, the WP_PROXY_* constants are set in wp-config.php.
  • [ ] If AI generation will be used, outbound HTTPS to generativelanguage.googleapis.com is allowed. AI features use the managed Google Gemini configuration in ADP Car Market Hub — no provider, model or API key has to be entered in the WordPress backend; customer-specific AI provisioning is completed by AD Promotion after installation.

5. License and AutoScout24 account

  • [ ] The ADP Car Market Hub license key from AD Promotion is on hand. The license is required to unlock the plugin's premium areas after activation; without it every admin tab except Settings shows a "License required" screen.
  • [ ] An active AutoScout24 partner account with API access is in place.
  • [ ] Client ID and Client Secret have been issued and stored securely (password manager or secrets vault).
  • [ ] One or more Seller IDs are known and confirmed to belong to the dealership(s) being onboarded.
  • [ ] The correct API Base URL for the dealer's market is known (e.g. https://api.autoscout24.ch for Switzerland).
  • [ ] Egress IPs of the production server have been shared with AutoScout24 if the account requires IP allow-listing.

6. Cron and background processing

  • [ ] A cron strategy has been chosen: WP-Cron (acceptable for small or high-traffic sites only) or server cron (recommended for production).
  • [ ] If server cron is chosen, define( 'DISABLE_WP_CRON', true ); has been added to wp-config.php.
  • [ ] If server cron is chosen, two cron entries are planned: one calling the plugin's REST endpoint with the secret token (every 15 minutes is a good default), and one running wp-cron.php (every 5 minutes) to keep image queue, analytics cleanup and other recurring jobs alive.
  • [ ] The cron secret token will be stored alongside the credentials and rotated whenever staff with access leave the project.
  • [ ] Distinct cron tokens are planned for staging and production so a staging trigger cannot start a production import.

7. Email

  • [ ] A working transactional email path is configured (hosting MTA, SMTP plugin pointing at a deliverability provider, or corporate relay).
  • [ ] SPF, DKIM and DMARC alignment have been verified for the sending domain.
  • [ ] Test emails (lead notification, search-alert opt-in, WordPress password reset) have been sent and received.

8. Backups, monitoring and operations

  • [ ] Daily off-site backups cover the entire WordPress database (including the plugin's custom tables prefixed with {wp_prefix}as24_) and the entire wp-content/uploads/ directory, with at least 7 days of retention (30+ days recommended).
  • [ ] Backup restoration has been rehearsed at least once.
  • [ ] Uptime monitoring is set up on the public archive URL.
  • [ ] Uptime or success monitoring is set up on the cron trigger endpoint when server cron is in use.
  • [ ] Disk-space alerting is configured for the volume hosting wp-content/uploads/.
  • [ ] An on-call contact and a documented escalation path exist for production incidents.

9. Pre-launch validation in WordPress

  • [ ] Plugin installed and activated on staging.
  • [ ] License activated on Settings → License Activation so the other admin tabs are unlocked (no "License required" screen).
  • [ ] Settings completed: API Base URL, Token URL (if needed), Client ID, Client Secret, Seller ID(s).
  • [ ] Tools tab → Test Connection returns success.
  • [ ] System & Help / Health tab shows green indicators for PHP, database, disk space, cron, API and (if configured) AI Assistant.
  • [ ] A small Batch-Wizard import has produced expected vehicle posts, taxonomies and media.
  • [ ] Single-vehicle pages and the archive render correctly with the active theme.
  • [ ] A test lead and a test search-alert subscription have been submitted and the corresponding emails received.
  • [ ] Cron mode, schedule, vehicles-per-run cap and image queue have been finalised in the Import & Limits tab.
  • [ ] An import has run end-to-end via the production-equivalent trigger (server cron or chosen alternative).
  • [ ] The same checklist has been re-validated on production after promotion.

Sign-off

Before enabling production imports, confirm that every item above is checked or formally accepted as a known limitation, and record:

  • Who performed the checks and on what date.
  • The plugin version installed (see the WordPress Plugins page).
  • The PHP, WordPress and database versions in use.
  • The configured cron mode and schedule.
  • The owner of the AutoScout24 credentials and the cron secret token.

A short text file or wiki page with the above is sufficient and dramatically simplifies later support requests.