running php on Windows XP professional

[sfullman]

Hi All,

Long ago I installed php/mysql on my W2K professional computer at home, for the purpose of running scripts on my computer (I never intended to host sites on the internet).

Thanks to MS's lovely security reputation, I immediately got a worm on my computer which soured me to ever enabling web services on my computer.

Now I have WXP professional, and I'd like to install php/mysql on my server, but limit it to localhost only -- and this way I can call php pages from my own computer and also talk to a mysql database.

How would I do this and make sure nobody but localhost get's through? And do I have to enable MS components like web services to do this?

Thanks for help on this,

Sam Fullman

[Roger_Ramjet]

Don't use XP, hate the look if the interface. I did notice that it has an inbuilt firewall setting, which no one seems to know about or use. That would be step 1. Best thing you can do is to get a software firewall like WinRoute and DENY ALL. Then only allow the protocols that you need on the ports that you need. That is the only way you are going to protect yourself these days.

[TheDefender]

Secondly, I recommend you download and install Apache as your web software and disable WinXP's IIS. The reason is two-fold.

1) You will find more webhosts who use Apache than those who use IIS, so transition from personal computer to webhost is smoother.
2) My personal experience has shown that Apache is less vulnerable to security holes exploited in IIS.

Since you are using MySQL/PHP, I don't imagine you would need *.asp support, which is the only reason I would even consider using IIS.

(Just my 2 cents)