Since drupal requires Apache, MySQL, and PHP. Most people new to drupal usually do not have Apache, MySQL and PHP installed and properly configured. Therefore, I would cover their installation and configuration as well. So Let's begin:
You can either install a pre-built package such as the one offered at devside.net or set up your own system. The pre-built versions are usually up an ready in a few minutes but give much less flexibility and you panic every time you encounter even a minor configuration issue. Setting up your own system is much more rewarding as you learn more about your system and also end up with a system which suits your needs better.
If you wish to use the pre-configured package, available at devside.net, go to http://drupal.org/node/195238 for installation instructions.
To build your own system, continue reading.
Here I describe installation and configuration of Apache 2.2.6. These instructions should be valid for version 2.0.x and above.
1. Go to http://www.apache.org/dist/httpd/binaries/win32/
2. Choose a mirror.
3. Click on the latest MSI Installer Package release. Something like apache_2.2.6-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi
1. Double-click on the .msi file you downloaded
2. Click on next
3. Accept license and click on next
4. In the Server Information window, input the following:
Network Domain: localhost
Server Name: localhost
Admin Email: admin@localhost
Check for All Users, on Port 80, as a Service and click on next
5. Choose Typical and click on next
6. Click on change and change Installation directory to c:\Apache2.2\
7. Click on next and Install
After the installion, Apache2 starts automatically. You should also see the start icon in the system tray. It is composed of a feather and the play symbol. You can click on this icon to start, stop or restart Apache. Alternately you can go to:
Start > All Programs > Apache HTTP Server 2.2.x > Control Apache Server
From here you can choose to start, stop, or restart Apache. Once, you install your server, I recommend that you restart the server to see if there are any errors.
The requested operation has failed!
If you get "The requested operation has failed!" error, then you need go to
Start > All Programs > Apache HTTP Server 2.2.x > Configure Apache Server > Test Configuration
to find the error. If nothing else works, uninstall and reinstall Apache.
Another Apache service is already running
You get this error message when you have multiple installations of apache. Several pre-configured server packages such as the one provided by http://www.devside.net install Apache. The easiest solution is to remove other apache installations. If you, however, wish to have multiple copies, you can go to http://www.heritage-tech.net/336/setting-up-multiple-apache-local-web-si... to get some guidance.
To check Apache error log, you need do the following:
Start > All Programs > Apache HTTP Server 2.2.x > Review Server log File > Review Server Log
All errors generated by Apache are logged in this file.
Testing the installation
Open your browser and type: http://127.0.0.1/ or http://localhost/. If you see the words "It works!", then your server is up and running. If it doesn't, then restart Apache service and try again.
By default, Apache points to c:\Apache2_2\htdocs, where c:\Apache2_2 is the installation directory we defined earlier. Suppose we would like to create out website at c:\www, we would have to point Apache to this address. To do so, we need to edit the httpd.conf file. There are two ways to to this. We can either go to:
Start > All Programs > Apache HTTP Server 2.2.x > Configure Apache Server > Edit the httpd.conf Configuration File
or simply open c:\Apache2_2\conf\httpd.conf with notepad.
Before you modify httpd.conf, you MUST create a backup copy of this file.
1. create folder c:\www
2. create an html file called index.html inside c:\www
3. Place the following html inside index.html
<html><body>I see you</body></html>
4. Search for DocumentRoot.
5. Put a '#' symbol in front of DocumentRoot "c:/Apache2_2" to comment it out
6. Type DocumentRoot "c:/www" underneath this line.
7. Search for <Directory "c:\Apache2_2\htdocs">
8. Put a '#' symbol in front of <Directory "c:\Apache2_2\htdocs"> to comment it out
9. Type <Directory "c:\www"> underneath this line.
10. Restart Apache service
11. Type http://localhost.
If you see you "I see you", you are in business. If it didn't work, go back to httpd.conf and make sure that you made the right modifications.
Here I will show how to install PHP and configure it with Apache. I am using Apache 2.2.6 and Windows XP. I would be installing PHP 5.2.5. It is assumed that you have read Installing Apache on Microsoft Windows.
1. Download PHP
PHP can be downloaded from http://www.php.net/downloads.php. Get the latest Windows Binary zip package for Apache. It should be something like php-5.2.x-Win32.zip.
2. Unpack PHP distribution
- Unzip to c:\php.
- Create a copy of c:\php\php.ini-dist and rename it to c:\php\php.ini.
3. Edit php.ini
- Edit php.ini file with notepad
- Comment out doc_root with ;
- Type doc_root = "c:\www" in the line just underneath. This address corresponds to the value of DocumentRoot in httpd.conf file of Apache. If you have set it to another value, use it instead of c:\www.
- Comment out extension_dir with ;
- Type extension_dir = "c:\php\ext" in the line just underneath.
Editing httpd.conf file
httpd.conf file is used to configure Apache. Go to
Start > Apache HTTP Server 2.2.6 > Configure Apache Server > Edit the Apache httpd.conf Configuration File
At the end of the file, type the following:
# Configuring PHP5 for Apache
LoadModule php5_module "c:/php/php5apache2_2.dll"
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
PHPIniDir "c:/php"
- The first line specifies the location of the .dll file which links Apache to PHP. Depending on your software version the name of the file would be different. However, it should have the format php5apache2_x.dll. Use the filename found inside your c:\php folder.
- The AddType directive specifies which mime type should be used for a given file extension
- PHPIniDir specifies the location of your php.ini file
- Do to DirectoryIndex found inside
<IfModule dir_module>
DirectoryIndex index.php index.html
</IfModule>
Order matters. Since index.php is placed before index.html, if both files were type, index.php would be displayed by default. So if you just type, http://localhost, index.php would display. If it doesn't exist, index.html will be displayed.
Moment of Truth
Create file c:\www\index.php. Inside write some PHP code such as print "hello"; and save it. Restart Apache. Type http://localhost or http://localhost/index.php to see your file. If you see the code instead of the output, double check your modifications to the .ini files.
I am using:
- Apache 2.2.6,
- PHP 5.2.5
- Windows XP
- web server root is c:\www
The instructions on this page are valid for MySQL 5.0 and higher.
1. Download MySQL
You can download mysql from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.0.html#downloads . I have an AMB 64-bit processor but Windows XP is 32bit. So I could not use the 64 bit version. So I downloaded Windows ZIP/Setup.EXE (x86).
2. Unzip Software
Once the software is downloaded, you can unzip it anywhere you want.
3. Install & Configure
- double click the .exe file to start installation
- next
- choose custom
- next
- next
- install
- next
- next
- finish
Installation is complete. The configuration wizard would open automatically.
- next
- choose detailed configuration
- next
- choose developer machine
- next
- choose multifunctional database
- next
- next
- choose manual setting
- choose concurrent connections 10
- next
- next
- choose Best support for multilingualism
- next
- next
- type root password
- next
- execute
Worst Nightmare
Your worst nightmare in MySQL is to get the following error message:
can't connect to MySql server on 'localhost' <10061>
If you check the blogs, you will find hundreds of people crying for help and various different proposed solutions. The reason is the this error can occur due a whole range of problems. Finding out what exactly caused this error can be a challenge. I had to turn off my avast antivirus. Once installation was complete, I turned avast back on and everything worked fine.
Moment of Truth
Go to:
Start > MySQL > MySQL Server 5.0 > MySQL command line client
Type the password you defined. Type show databases;. If you don't get errors, your MySQL is running.
Here I would show you how to configure your PHP with MySQL. I am using:
- Apache 2.2.6,
- PHP 5.2.5
- MySQL 5.0.25
- Windows XP
- web server root is c:\www
It is assumed that you have read the previous three articles where I show how to install Apache, install PHP, configure Apache and PHP to communicate with each other and install MySQL.
I have installed PHP on c:\php and the Apache document root is c:\www.
To configure PHP to communicate with MySQL, we need to edit the php.ini file which, on my computer, is located at c:\php\php.ini.
Edit php.ini
First of all create a backup copy of php.ini. Then edit it to remove the semicolon from
;extension=php_mysql.dll
This would uncomment this line. On my computer, php_mysql.dll file is located at c:\php\ext\php_mysql.dll. This directory is defined in php.ini file:
extension_dir = extension_dir = "c:\php\ext"
Please verify that php_mysql.dll is actually residing at this address. If it is not, then with change this address to where it is located or copy the file to this folder. Otherwise you will get an error like 'cannot connect to mysql_connect()'.
Setting system path
Once you have made this simply but crucial modification, you need to add the php directory to the system path:
Start > Control Panel > Advanced > Environment Variables > System Variables > Path > Edit
Go to the end of the line and append ;c:\php. You need to restart your computer for this to take effect. Once your computer is restarted, go back to verify that the change is permanent.
Now we need to test if we can access the database from the web.
Start MySQL client
Start MySQL:
Start > All Programs > MySQL > MySQL Server 5.0 > MySQL Command Line Client
type your password
Create New User
You do not want to give root access to a web client, so we need to create a new user account with limited privileges; select, insert, update, and delete on one database called test.
mysql> create user 'web_user'@'localhost' identified by 'password';
mysql> grant select, insert, update, delete on test.* to web_user identified by 'password';
Create and fill MySQL table
We need to create a table with dummy data to use for testing purposes. First we choose database. Then we create a table. Finally, we fill in some data.
mysql> use test;
mysql> create table person (id int primary key auto_increment, name varchar(30));
mysql> insert into person values (null, 'Alice');
mysql> select * from person;
Write PHP script
<?php
$con = mysql_connect("localhost", "web_user", "password") or die(mysql_error());
mysql_select_db("test",$con) or die(mysql_error());$q = "SELECT * FROM person";
$rs = mysql_query($q);while ($field = mysql_fetch_array($rs))
{
$id = $field['id'];
$name = $field['name'];
print 'ID: ' . $field['id'] . ' - Name: ' . $field['name'];
}
}
?>
Save this file as mytest.php inside c:\www\ folder. Reminder c:\www is the Apache document root.
Run the test
Now open your browser and type http://localhost/mytest.php. You should see ID:1 - Name:Alice.
Using MySQL from a commandline client is often not very convenient. Luckily there are several graphical clients. Perhaps the best one and certainly the most widely used is phpMyAdmin. It is freely available on the Internet. In this article, you would see how to install and configure phpMyAdmin to work with MySQL. If you experience troubles with these instruction, you might want to read the previous few articles. I am using:
- Apache 2.2.6,
- PHP 5.2.5
- MySQL 5.0.25
- Windows XP
- web server root is c:\www
1. Download phpMyAdmin
phpMyAdmin can be downloaded from here. Download the latest stable version without the -rc in the file name. Something like phpMyAdmin-2.11.2.2-english.zip.
2. Unzip inside web root
Unzip inside the web root. My web root, as defined in httpd.conf file, is c:\www. After unpacking, my directory should look like c:\www\phpMyAdmin\contrib\... You would have to rename phpMyAdmin-2.11.2.2-english to phpMyAdmin.
3. Set up config file
If you have a file c:\www\phpMyAdmin\config.inc.php, back it up. If you don't, create a new file with this name. Copy-paste the following code into this file. Add your password in place of PASSWORD. It appears twice in the file.