PHP & MySQL development enviroment

Posted by Sven

July 30, 2008

If you are PHP/MySQL developer like me ( as you maybe know I’m freelancer ) you will need some environment for developing your web applications for you and/or your clients. Also in other case if you blog enthusiast or simple you want to try some PHP script before you go on your live webserver this is mostly recommended solution for you. So let’s start from beginning. Here is ….

What is the XAMPP ? - XAMPP is a variation of the commonly used acronym LAMP which stands for Linux, the Apache web server, the MySQL database and the languages PHP and Perl. XAMPP runs on multiple platforms (hence the ‘X’) and installs versions of Apache, MySQL, PHP and Perl specifically tailored to run on your local computer rather than on a server available on the Internet. The emphasis on local installation also means that XAMPP is inherently insecure and should not be deployed on systems accessible from outside your own network. XAMPP makes all of this extraordinarily easy and the rest of this post will show you just how easy it really is. Also XAMPP is available for most common operating systems such is MacOS, Linux, Solaris and Windows ( we will use this installation package for our environment ).

Installing XAMPP - First you will need latest version of XAMPP and can be always downloaded from the Apache Friends XAMPP site. The most recent version is 1.6.7. The Windows version has three downloads - an installer file version, a zipped package version “for the purists” and a self-extracting zipped archive. The simplest option is the Windows installer. Go ahead and download the installer version. I don’t mind waiting.

Installation really is easy and is straight forward . Double click on the exe file you downloaded. If you’re running Vista, the following warning message may pop up:

XAMPP - Vista Warnning popup

Just follow advice and click OK.

After you press OK usual installer screen will show.

XAMPP Installation screen

XAMPP will ask you to choose a destination. Vista users should keep in mind the earlier warning message and make sure that XAMPP installs in to your main system folder. I have chosen to install XAMPP directly into my C:\ drive at c:\xampp. Once you have selected a location, click “Next” to continue.

XAMPP - Select folder where you want install

You need to install the web server and database services for XAMPP to be useful for local blog development. At the next screen of the installation, ensure that the boxes are checked for Apache service (the web server) and MySQL service (the database).

XAMPP - Options

The Filezilla option is for the installation of an FTP service. You are probably already familiar with FTP (File Transfer Protocol) but it is not required for our purposes here. I have left that option unchecked.
The shortcuts are also useful but not necessary. I have chosen to let XAMPP install the shortcuts.
Click “Install” to let the XAMPP installer do its thing, which will look something like this:

XAMPP - Start Installation

You might get an error message like the following once the installation is finished:

XAMPP - Ports Error

I am going to admit that I have no idea why this error message appeared. I waved the rubber chicken and clicked “OK”. Since then, everything seems to have worked just fine. My advice: go with the flow on this one.
Step 3 - Check your installation
XAMPP sets up a local web server on your computer that is accessed by typing http://localhost/ into your web browser. Do this now to see if XAMPP installed correctly with the required services running. If you’re lucky, your browser looks like this:

XAMPP - Final Look when started

For some reason, one or more of the required services might not be running (for example, the Apache service might not be running because the ports were already in use). You can see which services are running in the XAMPP Control Panel. If you chose to have shortcuts installed, you will find a shortcut to the Control Panel conveniently placed on your desktop. If not, you will also find the program sitting in the main XAMPP folder (the file is called xampp_control.exe).
The control panel looks like this:

XAMPP - Control Panel

The most important services are Apache and MySQL. If they’re not running, you can start them in the Control Panel. Once your control panel looks like the one above, try localhost again.
Hooray!
XAMPP is now installed and ready for business. In the coming weeks I will show you how to install a number of blogging engines on your local machine such as Wordpress and Movable Type.
If you are still having problems getting XAMPP up and running, drop me a line in the comments and I will try and help you get it working.

And that’s all

I’ll write in my next post how to setup PHP develop environment using xdebug and XAMPP, until that stay tuned.