HOWTO: Setup easy web development environment (XAMPP)

**jonny** · August 15th, 2006

I hate to sound negative, but I can't recommend this method of getting a development environment up and running unless you absolutely need MySQL 5. In particular, do not under any circumstances be tempted to use XAMPP on a PC that has any ports exposed to the internet unles you're absolutely certain that you know what you're doing. XAMPP is a development tool and should not be used on production boxes.

The Ubuntu way is to use software out of the repositories wherever possible. That means that you get:

- automatic security updates
- secure default settings
- guaranteed interoperability of software packages
- an effortless upgrade to Edgy.

These things are important, and shouldn't be lightly dismissed.

In Warty, Breezy and Hoary, setting up a LAMP server needed a fair bit of fiddling, but everything is superbly well engineered in Dapper. Just do

Code:

sudo apt-get install apache2 php5-mysql libapache2-mod-php5 mysql-server phpmyadmin

and everything will work perfectly.

I've used XAMPP in Windows, as a WAMP server is a real pig to get running smoothly. But it's really not appropriate for ubuntu.

**petervk** · August 15th, 2006

I found this:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ApacheMySQLPHP

Still a little confusing though.

I'll try it out and possibly write a new how-to using official Ubuntu sources.

az · August 15th, 2006

Originally Posted by petervk

I found this:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ApacheMySQLPHP

Still a little confusing though.

I'll try it out and possibly write a new how-to using official Ubuntu sources.

Any improvements you can give that page are welcome. Anyone can edit the wiki to improve it.

And what would really rock is if you could find out all of the ubuntu packages in universe that match Xampp applications and how to install and configure them. I'm certain that the xampp control panel and some artwork is not packaged for Ubuntu, but most of the other tools are.

The advantage would be that someone could take only the neccessary bits they want from an xampp development environment and put it on a production box more easily that way.

**Contrid** · August 15th, 2006

I really wish I knew how to install an SMTP server.
This is simply for the use of the PHP mail(); function.
Maybe someone has a link to a resource for me.

**petervk** · August 15th, 2006

Originally Posted by Contrid

I really wish I knew how to install an SMTP server.
This is simply for the use of the PHP mail(); function.
Maybe someone has a link to a resource for me.

This may help:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Po...asicSetupHowto

Still rather complex, and I don't know what you would do for a local computer without a domain name... Maybe set the domain name to localhost? Check it out though. Postfix is a Mail agent, so basically an STMP server.

Seriously though, this: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ is a great resource. All of the forum how-tos should be migrated here.

**dmeehan** · August 15th, 2006

thanks, its just what i was looking for

**3r14nd** · August 16th, 2006

Thanx for the tut...working on getting things setup now.

Got xampp installed and openssh installed and now just to download my website from the host its on now and edit it for capitalization errors and set up the picture gallery and the vBullitin and i'm done....yeah...

Thanx a million..

**petervk** · August 16th, 2006

Are you using XAMPP to host a public site on your computer? I'd really recommend not using XAMPP to host a publicly accessible site. You should really use the MySQL/apache/php that is included in dapper.

XAMPP on dapper should only be used for developement.

If it is for a public webserver you should use this:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ApacheMySQLPHP

Dapper includes everything that is in the XAMPP package (minus mySQL 5, Dapper has mySQL 4) in the main repo (or on the Dapper server cd) so it is bug tested and supported by Canonical and it the best way to get a full server running.

Please don't use the XAMPP package for a public webserver. You are just looking for problems and insecurity.

**jonny** · August 17th, 2006

petervk, I'm glad to see that you've updated your how-to to make it perfectly clear that your target audience is developers. XAMPP is an excellent development tool as it installs the entire LAMP stack with the latest MySQL and a few extra useful bits in next to no time. The caveats that I raised a few posts back were purely because I was concerned that XAMPP might be misused to create publicly accessible sites.

This is now a great how-to and, although I haven't tested it myself, I wholeheartedly endorse what you're trying to achieve.

**foxy123** · August 17th, 2006

I tried to set up XAMPP on my laptop and desktop, following this howto. Laptop works fine, but on the desktop I've got th efollowing error, when try to access http://localhost/myusername/

Code:

Warning: Unknown: failed to open stream: Permission denied in Unknown on line 0

Warning: Unknown: Failed opening '/opt/lampp/htdocs/myusername/index.php' for
inclusion (include_path='.:/opt/lampp/lib/php') in Unknown on line 0

any idea what is wrong?