WAMP HOWTO

Author: Troy Wolf (troy@troywolf.com)
Modified Date: 2005-07-11 14:00

WAMP stands for:

Windows Operating System
Apache Web Server
MySQL Database
PHP Scripting Language

This document explains how to install, configure, and test a basic setup. I'll also show you how to install phpMyAdmin which is an excellent browser-based tool to administrate your MySQL database.

These instructions were designed for Windows XP Pro and Home users although they should work for Windows 98 and Windows Server 2000/2003 with little modification.

DISCLAIMER: Use these instructions at your own risk. I do not guarantee any particular outcome. The basic configuration shown in this document is not secure. These instructions are not designed to help you setup a production system. Rather, they are to help newbies setup a basic system to learn about web development. In this HOWTO, I do not attempt to tell you HOW to use Apache, MySql, PHP, or phpMyAdmin. Instead, I explain only enough to get it all downloaded, installed, configured, and tested. As fast as things change, these instructions may not be accurate in 30 days. PLEASE follow these directions in the order listed and do not proceed until you have the previous parts tested and working.

Apache - The Web Server

I am not providing a direct link to a download since the links can change often, and Apache prefers you use a "local" mirror site to download from. So visit http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi and download the "Win32 Binary (MSI Installer)". The actual file name at time of this writing is apache_2.0.54-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi.

Run the installer and follow the installation wizard using all the default options. When asked to provide a domain name, if you are just installing for personal local development and learning, you can enter anything you want. Try mydomain.net for example. This same screen will prompt for a server name and an email address. The server name must include the domain name. So you could enter www.mydomain.net. (In this case, the name of your computer is "www" and the full name is "www.mydomain.net". It does not have to match the actual computer name of your machine.) You can just enter your real email address--it wont matter.

If everything worked, you should now have Apache installed and configured as a Windows Service which means it will automatically start when you start Windows. You should have a new icon in your System Tray that is a little red Apache feather. The icon shows the status of your web server--green for running and red for stopped. You can click it to open the Apache Service Monitor. You use this to Stop, Start, and Restart the service. You will need to restart the service anytime you make a configuration change---more on that later.

Confirm that the service is running. If not, start it. If it fails, then your problems are beyond this tutorial. Sorry. Thank you for playing. There is no need for you to continue beyond this point.

Congratulations! You have a web server! Open a browser and go to http://localhost. You should see the Apache default page telling you your server is working. These pages are being served from the DocumentRoot, which by default is a folder named htdocs within the location you installed Apache. Default is C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\htdocs. I like to leave this folder alone, and create my own DocumentRoot to build my website in. To do this, create a folder named www on your C:\ drive. Navigate to your C:\www folder, and create a new file using Notepad or your favorite text editor. (I recommend PSPad.) Name it index.html. Copy and paste the following into c:\www\index.html.

<html>
<head>
<title>My Own Local Web Server</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Hello, World!</h1>
</body>
</html>

Now we need to edit the Apache configuration to point it to our c:\www folder as the DocumentRoot. To do this, again in your favorite text editor, open the Apache conf file. By default this is C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\conf\httpd.conf. Find the line that looks like this:

DocumentRoot "C:/Program Files/Apache Group/Apache2/htdocs"

And turn it into this:

DocumentRoot "C:/www"

Save your changes. Using the Apache Service Monitor, Restart the service. Open a browser and go to http://localhost. You should see your new home page which is c:\www\index.html.

Whew! Step 1 complete.

PHP - The Scripting Language

Visit http://www.php.net/downloads.php and download "PHP 5.0.4 zip package". The actual file name at time of writing was php-5.0.4-Win32.zip.

Create a folder named php on your C:\ drive. Unzip the file into c:\php.

Make a copy of c:\php\php.ini-recommended and name it c:\php\php.ini

There are lots of values in the php.ini file you may eventually want to modify, but for now, as you are learning, you want to enable the display of errors and warnings. Open c:\php\php.ini in your favorite text editor. Change this line:

display_errors = Off

To:

display_errors = On

While you are in the php.ini file, you'll want to set the extensions path by changing this line:

extension_dir = "./"

To:

extension_dir = "c:\php\ext\"

You can close the php.ini file now.

Right-click My Computer and choose Properties. Choose the Advanced tab. Click the Environment Variables button at the bottom. In the System Variables section, click Path, then the Edit button. At the end of the path value, add ;C:\php;C:\php\ext Click OK and keep clicking OK until you exit out of the Properties. Reboot your computer. Grab a drink. Don't worry, I'll wait for you here.

Welcome back. Now we have to modify the Apache conf so it knows to use the PHP module. To do this, again in your favorite text editor, open the Apache conf file. Find the LoadModule section that begins with a comment line that looks like this:

# Dynamic Shared Object (DSO) Support

At the end of the list of LoadModule lines, add these 4 lines:

# PHP5
LoadModule php5_module "c:/php/php5apache2.dll"
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
PHPIniDir "c:/php/"

Also, find this line:

DirectoryIndex index.html index.html.var

And change it to this:

DirectoryIndex index.html index.html.var index.php

Now, save your changes, and restart Apache. (By now, you should know how to restart Apache.)

Create a new file named c:\www\index.php. Copy these lines into it:

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

Save this file. Rename c:\www\index.html to c:\www\old_index.html.

Open http://localhost in your browser. You should see the phpinfo page that displays your PHP version at top and a lot of system and user information tables. (Check out the phpinfo() function at http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.phpinfo.php.)

If this did not work for you, your issues are beyond the help of this tutorial. Sorry. Thank you for playing. There is no need to continue beyond this point.

Congratulations! You not only have a web server, you have successfully incorporated the PHP scripting module into Apache.

MySql - The Database

Visit http://dev.mysql.com/get/Downloads/MySQL-4.1/mysql-essential-4.1.12a-win32.msi/from/pick#mirrors to download the MySql 4.1 Windows Essential (x86) package. The actual filename at time of writing was mysql-essential-4.1.12a-win32.msi.

Run the installer and use all the default values. When prompted for a root password, choose one you can remember. Normally, security is an issue here, but if this is just for you to learn and play, it does not matter much.

Once the installation is complete, MySql should be configured as a Windows Service which means it will auto start when you start Windows. You should have a new MySql folder in your Start/All Programs menu. One of the items in the menu is MySQL Command Line Client. You can use this to do all your database administration from creating databases and tables to inserting data, etc. However, most people are not very comfortable using the command line interface, so later, I'll show you how to setup phpMyAdmin--a browser-based GUI tool. For now, though, use the MySQL Command Line Client to test your installation. Open the command line client to see a password prompt. Enter your root password. If successful, you'll see something like this:

Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 60 to server version: 4.1.12a-nt

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer.

mysql>

If this does not work for you, your issues are beyond this tutorial. Sorry. Thank you for playing. There is no need to continue beyond this point.

Congratulations! You now have a working MySql database server.

Now you need to configure PHP to work with MySql. Open c:\php\php.ini in your favorite text editor. There are 2 lines you need to uncomment. Change this line:

;extension=php_mbstring.dll

To:

extension=php_mbstring.dll

Change this line:

;extension=php_mysql.dll

To:

extension=php_mysql.dll

Save your changes. Restart the Apache service. (That's right--since we are using php as an Apache module, anytime you change either the Apache conf file or the PHP ini file, you must restart Apache to see your changes.)

To test that you have PHP configured to work with MySql, create a file named c:\www\dbtest.php. Copy and paste the following into it:

<?php

$db_server = "localhost";
$db_user = "root";
$db_pwd = ""; //Enter your root password here.
$db_db = "mysql";

if (!$cnn = mysql_connect($db_server, $db_user, $db_pwd)) {
  echo mysql_error();
  exit();
}
if (!mysql_select_db($db_db, $cnn)) {
  echo mysql_error();
  exit();
}

$sql = "select * from help_category";
if (!$res = mysql_query($sql, $cnn)) {
  echo mysql_error();
  exit();
}
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($res, MYSQL_ASSOC)) {
  $data[] = $row;
}

?>
<html>
<head>
<title>Apache/PHP/MySql Test</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Help Categories</h1>

<?

echo "<style>table.dump { font-family:Arial; font-size:8pt; }</style>";
echo "<table class=\"dump\" border=\"1\" cellpadding=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\">\n";
echo "<tr>";
echo "<th>#</th>";
foreach($data[0] as $key=>$val) {
  echo "<th><b>";
  echo $key;
  echo "</b></th>";
}
echo "</tr>\n";
$row_cnt = 0;
foreach($data as $row) {
  $row_cnt++;
  echo "<tr align='center'>";
  echo "<td>".$row_cnt."</td>";
  foreach($row as $val) {
    echo "<td>";
    echo $val;
    echo "</td>";
  }
  echo"</tr>\n";
}
echo "</table>\n";

?>

</body>
</html>

Be sure to put your mysql root password in the 5th line. Save your changes. Open http://localhost/dbtest.php in your browser. You should see the contents of the help_category table in the database named "mysql". (This is the system database. Normally you won't be working with this database. Instead, you'll create your own database to add tables and data to.)

phpMyAdmin - Browser-based GUI Admin tool for MySql

Download the latest stable release of phpMyAdmin. You can find this by starting at http://www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/index.php. At time of this writing, the latest stable release was 2.6.3. Pick a download location from http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/phpmyadmin/phpMyAdmin-2.6.3-pl1.zip?download The actual filename at time of writing was phpMyAdmin-2.6.3-pl1.zip.

Create a folder named c:\www\phpMyAdmin. Unzip the file into this new folder. Open C:\www\phpMyAdmin\config.inc.php in your favorite text editor. Find this section, and input your mysql username and password. You should enter 'root' as the username, and the root password you used when you installed MySql.

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['user'] = ''; // MySQL user
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] = ''; // MySQL password (only needed

Be careful as there are other places in the config file that look like places to put your username and password. Find the lines that look exactly like what I listed above--and only change those 2 lines.

Save your changes. Open http://localhost/phpMyAdmin in your browser. If you do not see the phpMyAdmin tool, then your issues are beyond this tutorial. Sorry. Thank you for playing. There is no need to continue beyond this point.

Congratulations! You now have a WAMP system with phpMyAdmin to administrate your database.

Enjoy the journey.

About the author

Troy Wolf operates ShinySolutions Webhosting, and is the author of SnippetEdit--a PHP application providing browser-based website editing that even non-technical people can use. Website editing as easy as it gets. Troy has been a professional Internet and database application developer for over 12 years. He has many years' experience with ASP, VBScript, PHP, Javascript, DHTML, CSS, SQL, and XML on Windows and Linux platforms. Check out Troy's Code Library.