There are plenty of standalone web servers which allows you to develop & test websites locally.You don’t need to connect to internet.You can see any changes yourself before making it live.You can even use it to test wordpress,MT or Drupal & their respective themes.In this article we’re discussing XAMPP standalone server.Before moving onto XAMPP let’s clear some small concepts.
Server ? Every website on the internet is hosted on some server.Server is simply a computer which manages the access to a centralized resource or service in a network. The main job of the server is to serve up web pages to client. In order to allow user to work locally on his computer, standalone server softwares are designed.
Standalone server ? is server which runs same set of programs that of server on internet.It allows developer to test the files that are going to upload on server before making it live over the internet.Standlalone server can be used to host the websites as well.
There are many standalone web servers,some of the worth to list are as follows
- Xampp
- Jsas
- Msas
- vtigerCRM
- Uniform Server
- BigApache (Allows Java & MySQL)
What is XAMPP?
XAMPP is a free, cross-platform web server, consisting mainly of the Apache,MySQL,PHP and Perl programming languages.Here,X in XAMPP denotes that it can be run on differenct operating system like windows,linux,Mac OS X etc.
Why XAMPP ?
In order to avoid adding entries to registry XAMPP doesn’t need to run on user computer.It offers batch files to start and stop the server and database engine.This means you can even take XAMPP on your USB drive and run the server.There is no need for admin rights & also have advantage of portability.
This article is written keeping Windows XP home & pro edition users in mind.Uninstall your previous installations of PHP and MySQL.
For XP PRO: Before installing XAMPP,be sure to disable IIS from XP services.
Installation
First thing you need to do is download the XAMPP from here [http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html ].Here,you’ve option of picking two packages:XAMPP & XAMPP lite.XAMPP lite is fine for web developement & wordpress stuff.For download you can choose from EXE and ZIP package.EXE package is much smaller than ZIP.After download save the zip/exe to anywhere on your disk.
Double click the EXE file which will open up the dialog box.Enter the path like C:/ or D:/.Just make sure not to enter the path with spaces.Whatever name you choose, you have to keep in mind that XAMPP has to be in an upper directory, so c:\program files\XAMPP will not work.Installer will copy the necessary file & you’ll see the XAMPPlite or XAMPP directory like this c:/xamplite or d:/xamplite.This means you’re done with installation.
Configuration
Step 1: Now go to the respective XAMPP directory.Inside this directory find the batch file named “setup_xampp.bat“.It will open up the command prompt & after some processing it will ask” Press any key to continue”.This means you’ve succesfully configured setup_xampp.
Step 2: You’ve to start the Apache & MySQL services.Click on the “xampp-control.exe”,this will open up the XAMPP control panel.There are two start button’s in front of the Apache & MySQL lables.Click on the start button.You’ll see the Services as “Running” in Green Background.
Step 3: There are no extra steps to configure now.You’ve to just run the XAMPP in your browser.Open up the Internet explorer or Firefox,enter the address : localhost/xampp/splash.php .You’ll be greeted with XAMPP splash screen.Choose the respective language and you’re on the XAMPP administration page.On the left sidebar you’ll see plenty of other options that you can use to configure XAMPP.
The next time you want to go to XAMPP admin/index page,enter this address in your browser: localhost/xampp/index.php
Notes:
1. If you’re having problems starting apache & MySQL services,make sure previous version or any other version apart from XAMPP is not installed & running on your system.Uninstall the previous installation & then restart the XAMPP,this will solve the problem.
2. Winsock errors on Windows OS can cause XAMPP to malfuntion.Make sure you’ve solved winsock related errors.
3. When it comes to security Uniform server is recommended over XAMPP as it offers all the features of XAMPP plus security.Uniform Server is also safe to use than XAMPP as standalone webserver for hosting website on your computer.Uniform Server takes less space on user disk than XAMPP.
Hopefully, for those of you who didn’t know anything or knew little about XAMPP & Standalone webserver this cleared some things up or gave you an idea on how to perceive XAMPP.If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to post them.