Using XAMPP Lite for PHP scripting

Now that you know how to setup your XAMPP Lite, it’s time to find your way around XAMPP Lite, and get ready for your first PHP script.

This post will highlight some of the features available in XAMPP, and what you do with them. It’s just a simple overview, so don’t expect anything in detail. Those will follow in later posts.

Default XAMPP Homepage

Make sure you start your XAMPP Lite by executing the xampp_start.exe file.

Starting up xampp lite

Open your browser to http://localhost/ and you should get the default XAMPP Homepage like so:

XAMPP Home Page

Finding your way around XAMPP

You can find all the XAMPP options listed in the orange sidebar. There are only a few essential items to take note of.

1. Status

This screen shows you the status of your XAMPP environment. All the active items are colored green.

XAMPP status screen

2. Security

This option will show you how secure is your XAMPP installation. The screenshot shows the default state (as in everything red).

For moment, we’ll move on, and leave the security unconfigured, since this is a development environment on your local PC/Notebook – but please remember that if you do deploy your PHP application for public access, don’t forget to take care of the security stuff. For example, you should write note write your PHP application connecting to the MySQL database without MySQL user authentication.

XAMPP security page

3. phpinfo()

This screen tells you everything about your PHP installation in XAMPP. How it’s configured, where the php.ini config file is located, what Apache version is running, what modules are active etc. Very useful to refer to.

4. phpMyAdmin

phpMyAdmin is your MySQL administration tool. It’s THE best open source app you can have to manage your MySQL installation. You use this to create and manage databases for your application, configure the user access to MySQL, and everything you’ll ever want to do with your MySQL database. Great tool.

5. Webalizer

This tool shows you the traffic coming to your site. Since this is a development environment, webalizer won’t be that useful. In any case, if you do deploy your PHP script to a hosting company, they would typically provide webalizer or equivalent tool as part of the hosting package.

I’ve missed out a few of the other items, like Documentation, Demos etc. I think those are self explanatory, browse them at your leisure.

Well, that’s it. That should give you some idea of where everything is in XAMPP Lite.

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Posted on January 8, 2008 at 5:38 pm by Eldee · Permalink
In: PHP Tutorials · Tagged with: , ,

3 Responses

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  1. Written by Mysql Database Administration Tool on May 17, 2008 at 11:47 am
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    Good site I “Stumbledupon” it today and gave it a stumble for you.. looking forward to seeing what else you have..later

  2. Written by tbb on June 23, 2009 at 4:54 am
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    Great stuff. Thanks!

    FYI, the whole shebang runs a lot better if you kill the mysql process…

  3. Written by khey on August 2, 2009 at 10:26 am
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    anyone who can help me how to make a website in a xampp software using php script….i’ll wait for anyone who could help me…tnx in advance

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