Installing LAMP:

1. Open a terminal window (Applications/Accessories/Terminal)
2. Type the command 'sudo apt-get install lamp-server^' (without the quotes but including the ^ )
3. During the install you will be prompted to create a root password for the MySQL database, type the password, hit enter, retype it to confirm it, hit enter again and the install will continue

Testing Apache:

Open Firefox and browse to this address: http://localhost/ You should see a web page that says "It Works!"

Testing PHP:

1. Open a terminal and type this command: 'gksudo gedit /var/www/testing.php' (gedit being the default text editor, others should work too)
2. Enter this text in the file and save it: <?php phpinfo(); ?>
3. Restart the php server using this command: 'sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart'
4. Open Firefox and browse to this address: http://localhost/testing.php/

You should see a page displaying version information for your php installation.

Installing phpMyAdmin(Optional):

1. Open a terminal and type the command 'sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-auth-mysql phpmyadmin'
2. The installation will prompt you to select a web server for automatic configuration. Use the space bar on your keyboard to select apache2 and then hit enter.
3. A prompt will come up asking you if you want to configure a database. Select yes and hit enter.
4. Enter the MySQL root password you created earlier and create a new password for phpMyAdmin. (You can use the same as the MySQL one.)
5. Test phpMyAdmin by browsing to http://localhost/phpmyadmin/

You should see a login page similar the one shown in CS1106 lectures.

php.ini

Left click on the WAMP icon in your System Tray. From the menu, choose Stop All Services. The icon should turn part red. Left click it again, and choose PHP and then php.ini. This should open the php.ini file in Notepad.

Edit the file to make your installation a little closer to the one you use on our machines in UCC. In other words, for each of the following, find the left-hand side in your file and, if necessary, change the right-hand side to what you see below.

• allow_call_time_pass_references = On
• allow_url_fopen = Off
• error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_STRICT
• log_errors = Off
• magic_quotes_gpc = On
• precision = 12
• register_argc_argv = On
• safe_mode = On
• short_open_tag = On

Save the file and exit Notepad. Then start the servers again by left-clicking the System Tray icon and choosing Start All Services. Wait for the icon to turn from red to yellow and then to green.

MySql

We will add a password to your MySQL database:

1. Left click the WAMP icon in your System Tray and choose phpMyAdmin from the menu. This opens a web page in your browser.
2. On this page, click on the Users tab.
3. On this User Overview page, click on the Edit Privileges action for the user called root and the host called localhost. This takes you to another new web page.
4. On this Edit Privileges page, scroll down to the Change password box. Enter a password twice, and then click Go.
5. With your favourite editor (Notepad++, I presume), open C:\wamp\apps\phpmyadmin\config.inc.php.
6. Find the following line:

   $cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] = '';

   and change it thus:

   $cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] = 'yournewpassword';

   but replacing yournewpassword with the password that you just created with phpMyAdmin.
7. Repeat steps 2-5 above for all other users called root. (There are probably two others.)
8. Left click the WAMP icon in your System Tray and, from the menu, choose Restart All Services. As usual, wait for the red/yellow to disappear.

N.B. The above is adequate for an installation on your personal laptop or PC, especially since I recommended that you keep the server offline, so that external users cannot access it. If you are installing on a shared machine, or running online, then consult an authoratative source for information about secure configuration.

Changing the browser

At the moment, if you left click the WAMP icon in your System Tray and, from the menu, choose Localhost (or phpMyAdmin), I imagine that it is the Firefox browser that is launched. Let's suppose you want to change this to Chrome.

You must use a text editor such as Notepad++ to open and edit two files: C:/wamp/wampmanager.conf and C:/wamp/wampmanager.ini. In these two files, you must replace all occurrences of this:

C:/Program Files/Mozilla Firefox/firefox.exe

with the location of your installation of Chrome, most likely the following:

C:/Users/userid/AppData/Local/Google/Chrome/Application/chrome.exe --enable-ipv6

— but with the user id that you use when logging in to your PC/laptop in place of userid.

Also, in Chrome, choose Settings > Show advanced settings > Change proxy settings > LAN Settings. Make sure that Automatically detect settings is not checked and that Bypass proxy server for local addresses is checked.

With all that done, I found it necessary to restart my machine.

Hopefully, the next time you left-click the WAMP icon in your System Tray and choose Localhost from the menu, it will launch Chrome. But be warned: I found this to be very temperamental!

php.ini

Your php.ini file can be found in Applications/MAMP/conf/php5.

Use an editor to change this file, as per WAMP above.

MySql

The password for MySQL for the root user will be 'root'. If you work out how to (successfully) change this, send me instructions. Leaving it as 'root' is OK. With the free version of MAMP, there is no option anyway of allowing external access. (For MAMP PRO, the story is different.)