MYSQL, PHP and Apache startup problems

jmshillito

As you will see from this post I am an absolute beginner.
I installed Apache server, MYSQL and PHPMYADMIN from xampp - the apache server was running fine, and I created a SQL database, hoping to simply display the results on a web page. I copied the following PHP script from http://www.tizag.com/phpT/ into a new page in Front Page and saved it as .PHP

<html>
<head>
<title>My First PHP Page</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
phpinfo();
echo "Hello World!";
?>
</body>
</html>

Opening the page gave me a blank screen. On reading your forum, I suspected that the PHP service might not be running (although Apache server and MYSQL were running, as long as I wasn't connected to the internet) I realise you are not an Apache forum, but am I correct in thinking that the above script should have worked if PHP was running - and how do I get PHP to run?
Secondly, I found another site which showed how to run MYSQL as a service, and entered the code. Now when I try to start Apache it will not start. Can I stop running MYSQL as a service?

Many thanks in advance

Vbabiy

You should try using one of the WAMP setup as you start off. Very easy to set up.
Just do a google on WAMPS for windows and linux just do LAMP.

AMP(Apache, Mysql, PHP)

Alot of good ones out there.

MarkR

You have to open your page via the web server - you can't simply load it into the browser locally and hope it works.

That's to say, if you've put it in the web root directory, and called it "test.php", you must go to

http://localhost/test.php

(The above assumes it will be running on port 80, which I believe xampp does by default)

Mark

jmshillito

Many thanks! Is the web root directory c:\XAMPP by default, or can I change it? I am building an Intranet using Front Page and would like to include PHP files in my Front Page Web. When I try to publish to http://localhost I get the error "No Front Page Extensions or SharePoint services"
Is there a way round this?

Thanks again
John

Vbabiy

use Dreamweaver 🙂

mpdolan_com

You could ftp the files to your site,
free ftp server: http://www.whitsoftdev.com/slimftpd/

Sikh

MarkR wrote:
You have to open your page via the web server - you can't simply load it into the browser locally and hope it works.

That's to say, if you've put it in the web root directory, and called it "test.php", you must go to

http://localhost/test.php

(The above assumes it will be running on port 80, which I believe xampp does by default)

Mark

I got the same problem but in linux. How do I open my page via the webserver in linux?

dalecosp

This isn't a server admin forum, nor a TCP/IP protocol forum. If we need to really know much about these issues, I'd suggest we all find one.

A few tips to get us started, and then let's concentrate on the business at hand, eh?

On most platforms, "netstat" is available in the shell/CLI. Look for something like this to see if you have a webserver running:

netstat -anf inet
Active Internet connections (including servers)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q  Local Address          Foreign Address        (state)
tcp4       0      0                   *.80                   *.*                    LISTEN

Windows is slightly different (it doesn't accept the "f" switch or inet keyword, nor have the columns for the size of the send/receive queues), but the idea is the same.

This output indicates that the machine I'm on is "listening" on port 80 (the default port for http requests). If your machine isn't, you must either install a webserver, or start the one you have already installed. Both operations are rather OT for phpbuilder.com, although we do have two forums for "Linux/Unix help" and "Windows help" (but they aren't used much.)

Now, assuming that your machine is listening on port 80, you need to know what address to "go to" with your browser. In the example above, the machine is listening on all standard interfaces on port 80 (hence the display shows *.80 instead of, say, your LAN address of 192.168.1.55:80 or your outside interface of "You.rPu.bli.cIP:80").

All machines have a "loopback" interface at the address 127.0.0.1. All machines, if properly set up, know that the name "localhost" applies to the address 127.0.0.1, so, if you have a local http server listening on port 80 on all interfaces, http://localhost/ should get you there. Otherwise, you might have to point to (examples) http://192.168.1.55/ (for a LAN interface) or http://You.rPu.bli.cIP/ (when You.rPu.bli.cIP is your dotted-quad IPv4 address).

Beyond that, you get into DNS and name resolution. You can assign names arbitrarily for your own machine by editing the hosts file (/etc/hosts on most 'Nix systems; %systemdir%/hosts on older Windows and %systemdir%/system/drivers/etc/hosts on Win2K/XP --- note that the "hosts" file may not be present on Windows systems, but there will, in this case, be a "hosts.sam" file which you should copy to "hosts" and edit to set up a "name" that you can use for your system to hit your local development server. The format is pretty simple:

192.168.1.55    testserver.foobar.local   testserver

in a hosts file will cause your computer to look at 192.168.1.55 whenever you run TCP/IP operations using the name "testserver".

Note that you could replicate this hosts file to a whole bunch of machines, if you wanted to. This would allow everyone to know what address "testserver.foobar.local" had. AAMOF, this is exactly how the Internet used to work. Machine administrators would download a new "hosts" file from a central server every week or so, to see what new machines had been connected to the 'Net.

As the size of the hosts file grew, and the job of keeping up with the entries on it got to be too much to handle, the community needed a new solution, so Paul Mockapetris invented DNS as we (more or less) know and love it today. But, that's another subject entirely, also....

dalecosp

jmshillito wrote:
Opening the page gave me a blank screen.

Did it also give you blank source? I mean, you should have at least seen "My First PHP Page" in the title bar of your browser.....

Can I stop running MYSQL as a service?

Golly, I should hope so. But you don't even say what OS you are using. I assuming, since you say "service", you use Windows (but some Linuxii call them "services", too, don't they)?

Ahh, "c:\xampp"! So $OSTYPE=="Windows". Have you tried "taskmgr.exe"??

When I try to publish to http://localhost I get the error "No Front Page Extensions or SharePoint services"
Is there a way round this?

You need to have a server with FP extensions installed. I've done it with FreeBSD/Apache, never tried with anything else. Don't like FP - it writes awful code, even now in 2005....

Sharepoint, IIRC, is a component of Microsoft's IIS server on Win2003 server.

So I'd say to get rid of that error you need to shell out for Windows 2003 server. Not my cup 'o tea, so to speak ... I like to spend my money on important things, like gasoline and groceries.... 😉

All I can really say about such is, "good luck".

jmshillito

Thanks Dalecosp - I reinstalled XAMPP, loaded the page via http://localhost, and it works fine. Will copy your reply for when I get back to my server. Thanks again.

EvilSupahFly

mpdolan.com wrote:
You could ftp the files to your site,
free ftp server: http://www.whitsoftdev.com/slimftpd/

SLIM is nice, but I still prefer to use my (very ancient) Serv-U v2.5. 😃

Guess that dates me...

But I came here because I'm having difficulties with PHP Extensions and was wondering if the WAMP solution would work for me.

Guess I'll try it and find out, right? If it's not working, what's to loose? 🙂