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Tutorial - Installing a Web Server

Overview - You will install an Apache Web server (and powered with MySQL, PHP and Perl) in your computer. You then do some practices to play with.

Activity 1: Install XAMPP as a Web server in your PC

• Go to apache friends - xampp for windows
• Install the XAMPP for Windows as instructed

Activity 2: Start, stop, test the XAMPP server

• After starting of Apache (and MySQL), go to the address http://localhost/ or http://127.0.0.1/ in your browser and examine all of the XAMPP examples and tools.

• The Web server can be accessible by other people in the network. They need to know your IP address in order to access it. You can use ipconfig command (open a command prompt and type 'ipconfig') to find the IP address of your machine. After that, you can test it by inputting http://<your_ip_address> in your browser.

Activity 3: Put a simple Web site written only in HTML and CSS.

• All the web files are stored under the folder htdocs. We call it the document root of the Web server.
• Get two HTML+CSS templates from the following websites.
  • Free CSS - http://www.free-css.com/
  • Free CSS Template - http://www.freecsstemplates.org/
• For each template, use a new folder to store it. Put the folder into the Web server's document root.
• Use your browser to access the sample website in your Web server.

Activity 4: Install a dynamic website powered by PHP and MySQL

• Read this tutorial: Create a Basic Shoutbox with PHP and SQL - Nettuts+
• Try your best to install the Shoutbox application.
• Note: PhpMyAdmin can be accessed with URL: http://localhost/phpmyadmin

Alternative to XAMPP

• WampServer - PHP Apache MySQL avec WampServer 2 : installation PHP MySQL Apache
• EasyPHP - Install a local WAMP server : PHP 5 VC9, Apache 2 VC9, MySQL 5, PhpMyAdmin, Xdebug and Modules on Windows XP/Vista/Seven