Running Drupal on TrueCore: What to Expect

You have just finished a client brief for a Drupal-based site and need to find a UK host that respects Drupal's PHP version and database requirements. TrueCore offers a transparent stack that matches Drupal 10's needs without hidden layers.

PHP-FPM with PHP 8.3

Drupal 10 requires at least PHP 8.3, and every TrueCore plan that offers a PHP runtime runs PHP-FPM with version 8.3 installed. The runtime lives behind nginx 1.28 and respects the kernel-enforced resource limits we publish for each plan.

# Verify PHP version from your SSH session
php -v
# Expected output
PHP 8.3.12 (cli) (built: Sep 15 2024 12:34:56) 

Drupal's recommended memory_limit is 256 M for a modest site, which the Ember plan comfortably covers alongside any additional Composer or Drush processes you launch. Resources scale by reserved units rather than fixed RAM figures: every server holds 100 reserved units, and each step up from Ember to Blaze to Inferno assigns your account more reserved units on the same node, so you can raise limits for heavier traffic or concurrent background jobs without hitting our per-container caps. Upgrading never moves you to a different or faster machine — it gives you a larger slice of the one you are already on.

Our PHP-FPM pools are isolated with flame-bubble containers, so a runaway script cannot affect another customer. The trade-off is that you cannot change the PHP-FPM pool configuration from inside the container; any adjustments must be made through the portal's PHP Settings tab.

Per-customer PostgreSQL matches Drupal's database driver

Drupal supports both MySQL and PostgreSQL. TrueCore's Ember tier and above provide a dedicated PostgreSQL 16 instance per account, as described in our Per-Customer PostgreSQL post. The database lives at 10.88.0.1:5432 inside your container and is unreachable from the public internet.

Add the following to your settings.php when you choose PostgreSQL:

$databases['default']['default'] = [
  'driver' => 'pgsql',
  'database' => 'your_db',
  'username' => 'your_user',
  'password' => 'your_password',
  'host' => '10.88.0.1',
  'port' => '5432',
];

Because the database runs in a separate process, query latency is low and you retain full PostgreSQL features such as native JSON, which many Drupal modules rely on. On the Flameling plan you do not receive a database at all, so Drupal cannot be installed there. Ember gives you a single 40 GB storage allocation, Blaze expands that to 60 GB, and Inferno offers 100 GB with 30-minute backup intervals.

Performance isolation means that a heavy migration on a neighboring site does not affect yours. Security isolation ensures that only credentials you generate can access your database. Both are baked into the per-customer design.

Composer and Drush over SSH

Drupal's ecosystem expects Composer for dependency management and Drush for command-line administration. TrueCore provides SSH access on every plan that includes a PHP runtime. Connect with the key you uploaded in the SSH Keys section of the portal:

ssh -i ~/.ssh/truecore_id_rsa your_user@ssh.truecorehosting.com

Once logged in, you are inside a flame-bubble container that has the full toolchain:

# Verify Composer version
composer --version
# Expected output: Composer version 2.7.6 2024-06-12

# Install Drupal core and recommended modules
composer create-project drupal/recommended-project ~/mydrupal
cd ~/mydrupal
composer require drush/drush

Drush works out of the box because the container includes the drush binary in /usr/local/bin. Typical admin tasks look like this:

drush site:install standard \
  --site-name="My Site" \
  --account-name=admin \
  --account-pass=strongpassword \
  --db-url=pgsql://your_user:your_password@10.88.0.1:5432/your_db

The SSH session respects the same resource limits as the web processes, so long-running Composer updates should be run during off-peak hours if you are on Ember. On Blaze and Inferno the larger reserved-unit allocation lets you run parallel Composer jobs without hitting the container's memory ceiling.

If you need cron jobs for Drupal, add them to the Cron tab in the portal. The system runs the tasks with the same user and container constraints, ensuring that a misbehaving module does not exhaust host resources.

Choosing the right TrueCore plan for Drupal

| Plan | PHP runtime | PostgreSQL | Storage | Backup interval | |------|-------------|------------|---------|-----------------| | Flameling | No | None | 4 GB | Daily | | Ember | Yes (PHP 8.3) | Dedicated PostgreSQL 16 | 40 GB | 12-hourly | | Blaze | Yes | Dedicated PostgreSQL 16 | 60 GB | 6-hourly | | Inferno | Yes | Dedicated PostgreSQL 16 | 100 GB | 30-min |

If you are building a simple brochure site with a handful of modules, Ember is the most cost-effective. For larger sites that need many contributed modules, multiple languages, or heavy search indexing, Blaze gives you extra storage and more frequent backups. Inferno is suited to high-traffic portals that require the 30-minute backup cadence and up to 100 email accounts.

All plans include automatic SSL certificates, DNS management via our own flame-dnsd daemon, and SSH key-based login. We do not offer cPanel or other control panels; instead we provide a lightweight customer panel that lets you edit SSH keys, view database credentials, and trigger backups on demand.

What you cannot expect

TrueCore does not run Docker or Kubernetes as a primary orchestration layer. Your Drupal site runs inside a flame-bubble container directly on Alpine Linux, which is why we can guarantee per-process isolation without a heavyweight stack. We also do not provide 24/7 phone support; support is handled through email tickets and the portal during business hours, with out-of-hours response only for true incidents.

Getting started

1. Sign up for the Ember plan (or higher) at truecorehosting.com.
2. Add your SSH public key in the portal.
3. Create a PostgreSQL database from the Database tab.
4. SSH into the server and run Composer to pull Drupal.
5. Configure settings.php with the provided credentials.
6. Run drush site:install and finish the installation wizard.

Your Drupal site will be live on ember (Netcup, Nuremberg — under UK jurisdiction, though the metal sits in Germany), reachable at ember.truecorehosting.com, with sub-second DNS propagation thanks to our in-house flame-dnsd service. Backups run automatically to encrypted Restic archives on Backblaze B2, so you can restore a snapshot with a single click if needed.

Running Drupal on TrueCore gives you the exact versions Drupal expects, clean isolation between sites, and the command-line tools you need—all without the bloat of a generic shared-hosting control panel. Choose the plan that matches your traffic and storage needs, follow the steps above, and you'll have a solid Drupal foundation in minutes.