Complete XAMPP setup in Linux

What is XAMPP ?
XAMPP is an easy to install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl. XAMPP is really very easy to install and to use - just download, extract and start.

This guide will provide you step by step to process to setup XAMPP in your Linux machine and configure it to run a website on localhost environment.

Step 1.) Download appropriate Xampp release (preferably latest).
 (Attention: If you download these files on a Windows system and you're running McAfee virus scanner you may get a false positive virus warning. This is a problem with McAfee and gzip-compressed files, it should be ignored.)

Step 2.) After downloading simply type in the following commands:
      (For installing any application at linux you need to Root access of the computer. In Ubuntu by default the root       account is not enabled.If you are installing it on ubuntu then you need to ebable Root access for it by following command. Open your terminal and type following and invoke sudo passwd root)

1. Go to a Linux shell and login as the system administrator root:
   osao@osao-laptop:~$ su
   
2. Extract the downloaded archive file to /opt: root@osao-laptop:/home/osao# tar xvfz xampp-linux-1.8.0.tar.gz -C /opt
   Warning 1: Please use only this command to install XAMPP. DON'T use any Microsoft Windows tools to extract the archive, it won't work.
   Warning 2: already installed XAMPP versions get overwritten by this command.
   

That's all. XAMPP is now installed below the /opt/lampp directory.



Step 3.)To start XAMPP simply call this command:

root@osao-laptop:/home/osao# /opt/lampp/lampp start

You should now see something like this on your screen:
Starting XAMPP 1.8.0...
LAMPP: Starting Apache...
LAMPP: Starting MySQL...
LAMPP started.

Ready. Apache and MySQL are running.

Step 4.) OK, that was easy but how can you check that everything really works? Just type in the following URL at your favourite web browser:
http://localhost
Now you should see the start page of XAMPP containing some links to check the status of the installed software and some small programming examples.

 With /opt/lampp/lampp <Parameter> command as root from terminal

Parameter	Description
start	Starts XAMPP.
stop	Stops XAMPP.
restart	Stops and starts XAMPP.
startapache	Starts only the Apache.
startssl	Starts the Apache SSL support. This command activates the SSL support permanently, e.g. if you restarts XAMPP in the future SSL will stay activated.
startmysql	Starts only the MySQL database.
startftp	Starts the ProFTPD server. Via FTP you can upload files for your web server (user "nobody", password "lampp"). This command activates the ProFTPD permanently, e.g. if you restarts XAMPP in the future FTP will stay activated.
stopapache	Stops the Apache.
stopssl	Stops the Apache SSL support. This command deactivates the SSL support permanently, e.g. if you restarts XAMPP in the future SSL will stay deactivated.
stopmysql	Stops the MySQL database.
stopftp	Stops the ProFTPD server. This command deactivates the ProFTPD permanently, e.g. if you restarts XAMPP in the future FTP will stay deactivated.
security	Starts a small security check programm.

IMPORTANT FILES AND DIRECTORIES
File/Directory	Purpose
/opt/lampp/bin/	The XAMPP commands home. /opt/lampp/bin/mysql calls for example the MySQL monitor.
/opt/lampp/htdocs/	The Apache DocumentRoot directory.
/opt/lampp/etc/httpd.conf	The Apache configuration file.
/opt/lampp/etc/my.cnf	The MySQL configuration file.
/opt/lampp/etc/php.ini	The PHP configuration file.
/opt/lampp/etc/proftpd.conf	The ProFTPD configuration file. (since 0.9.5)
/opt/lampp/phpmyadmin/config.inc.php	The phpMyAdmin configuration file.

To Stop XAMPP call this command:                                                

root@osao-laptop:/home/osao# /opt/lampp/lampp stop

You should now see:
Stopping LAMPP 1.8.0...
LAMPP: Stopping Apache...
LAMPP: Stopping MySQL...
LAMPP stopped.

And XAMPP for Linux is stopped.

To Uninstall XAMPP                                                                     

There is no parameter available with /opt/lampp/lampp to uninstall the XAMPP. We need to forcefully delete the director.

root@osao-laptop:/home/osao# rm -rfv /opt/lampp

Security Setting Steps                                                                     

 By default in XAMPP installation.

• The MySQL administrator (root) has no password.
• The MySQL database can be accesses by network.
• PhpMyAdmin is accessible via network etc.

to overcome these security issues you need to set it by running following command in terminal.

root@osao-laptop:/home/osao# /opt/lampp/lampp security

You can check the security status of your installation by following URL.

http://localhost/xampp/security.php  Use lampp as username and password you have given



Now it is time to test the current installation is working or not.
To test apache
a.   Change direcory permission of        /opt/lampp/htdocs by following command.

root@osao-laptop:/home/osao#sudo chmod 777 -R /opt/lampp/htdocs

b.  Go to     /opt/lampp/htdocs    create a folder name test and craete a
index.php
write following small test code in that
 <?php phpinfo() ?>
and open followind url :
http://localhost/test
you will see following screen



That's DONE !!

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