XAMPP

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XAMPP is an easy to install Apache distribution containing MariaDB, PHP, Perl and ProFTPD. It contains: Apache, MariaDB, PHP & PEAR, Perl, ProFTPD, phpMyAdmin, OpenSSL, GD, Freetype2, libjpeg, libpng, gdbm, zlib, expat, Sablotron, libxml, Ming, Webalizer, pdf class, ncurses, mod_perl, FreeTDS, gettext, mcrypt, mhash, eAccelerator, SQLite and IMAP C-Client.

Installation

Install the xamppAUR package.

Configuration

The default configuration should work out of the box. Setting the individual parts of XAMPP can by made by editing following files:

  • /opt/lampp/etc/httpd.conf — Apache configuration. For example you can change folder with web page's source files.
  • /opt/lampp/etc/php.ini — PHP configuration.
  • /opt/lampp/phpmyadmin/config.inc.php — phpMyAdmin configuration.
  • /opt/lampp/etc/proftpd.conf — ProFTPD configuration.
  • /opt/lampp/etc/my.cnf — MySQL configuration.

If you would like to set up security of server, just run 

# /opt/lampp/xampp security

You will be asked step by step to choose passwords for web page's access, user "pma" for phpMyAdmin, user "root" for MySQL and user "daemon" for ProFTPD.

Usage

Use the following commands to control XAMPP: 

# /opt/lampp/xampp start,stop,restart

Alternatively, you can start, stop, or restart xampp.service.

Autostart on boot

In order to start XAMPP at boot, enable xampp.service.

Tips and tricks

Hosting files outside the htdocs directory

The document root (web root) directory is located at /opt/lampp/htdocs/. All files placed in this directory will be processed by the web server.

To host other files on your system with XAMPP, you can configure an alias with Apache.

  • Edit Apache's /opt/lampp/etc/httpd.conf with your favorite editor.
  • Find DocumentRoot, you will see something like:
DocumentRoot "/opt/lampp/htdocs"
<Directory "/opt/lampp/htdocs">
    ...    
    ...

</Directory>
  • In the next line after </Directory> paste this:
<Directory "/yourDirectory/">
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks ExecCGI Includes
    AllowOverride All
    Require all granted
</Directory>
  • Next find the <IfModule alias_module>:
<IfModule alias_module>

    #
    # Redirect: Allows you to tell clients about documents that used to 
    # exist in your server's namespace, but do not anymore. The client 
    # will make a new request for the document at its new location.
    # Example:
    # Redirect permanent /foo http://www.example.com/bar
  ...
</IfModule>
  • And before the </IfModule> paste this:
Alias /yourAlias /yourDirectory/
  • Next find the <IfModule unixd_module>:
<IfModule unixd_module>

  ...  
  ...
    User daemon
    Group daemon
</IfModule>
  • And change the daemon with yourUser and yourGroup:
User yourUser
Group yourGroup
  • Now do not forget to restart Apache:
# /opt/lampp/xampp restart

This will allow you to host files from your home directory (or any other directory) with XAMPP.

In the above example, you can access the files by pointing your web browser to localhost/yourAlias.

Debugging and profiling with Xdebug and XAMPP

See https://xdebug.org/find-binary.php for detailed instructions.

You must first download the XAMPP Development Tools from the same download page, https://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-linux.html.

Extract this into your XAMPP directory: 

# tar xvfz xampp-linux-devel-x.x.x.tar.gz -C /opt

You should be able to successfully run /opt/lampp/bin/phpize in your xdebug folder.

Local test server security

Apache, MySQL and ProFTPD can be configured so that they only listen to requests from your own computer. For most test systems this is fine and it greatly reduces the risk because the services are not reachable from the Internet.

Before you start XAMPP for the first time find and edit these files:

For Apache edit the files /opt/lampp/etc/httpd.conf and /opt/lampp/etc/extra/httpd-ssl.conf. Look for lines starting with "Listen" such as 

Listen 80

and replace them with 

Listen 127.0.0.1:80

For MySQL open the file /opt/lampp/etc/my.cnf find the section "[mysqld]" and add this line 

bind-address=localhost

For ProFTPD, add the following lines to /opt/lampp/etc/proftpd.conf under the "DefaultServer" section 

DefaultAddress 127.0.0.1
SocketBindTight on

After starting the services, verify the result by going to a command window and start and execute: 

$ netstat -a -n

For the entries marked as LISTEN in the last column, look at the Listen column. It should always start with 127.0.0.1 or ::1 but not with 0.0.0.0.

Manual installation

To install XAMPP manually instead of following #Installation, download the installer from the website, make it executable and run it by typing: 

# ./xampp-linux-x64-version-installer.run
Note: The net-tools and inetutils packages from the official repositories are required dependencies, so make sure they are installed before launching XAMPP.
Tip: By default the installer uses the Qt backend for its UI. If you want it to use the GTK backend instead, launch: 
# ./xampp-linux-x64-version-installer.run --mode gtk

If you do not want to use any graphical interface and prefer to install XAMPP directly from the terminal, launch: 

# ./xampp-linux-x64-version-installer.run --mode text

For further options, launch as normal user: 

$ ./xampp-linux-x64-version-installer.run --help

You can now create a systemd service for XAMPP: 

/etc/systemd/system/xampp.service
[Unit]
Description=XAMPP

[Service]
ExecStart=/opt/lampp/xampp start
ExecStop=/opt/lampp/xampp stop
Type=forking

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Manual removal

If you have installed XAMPP manually you will need to remove it manually as well. Be sure to stop all XAMPP services. 

# /opt/lampp/xampp stop

All the files needed by XAMPP to be installed are located in the previous /opt/lampp folder. So, to uninstall XAMPP: 

# rm /etc/systemd/system/xampp.service
# rm -r /opt/lampp
Note:
  • Be sure to backup your files before doing this (such as files in /opt/lampp/htdocs).
  • If you created symlinks, you may need to destroy them too.
  • Do not use this method if you have installed the package; uninstall the package instead.

Troubleshooting

PhpMyAdmin 403 Access Forbidden

If your http://localhost/phpmyadmin returns "403 Access Forbidden", you need to edit the following settings in /opt/lampp/etc/extra/httpd-xampp.conf: 

<Directory "/opt/lampp/phpmyadmin">
	AllowOverride AuthConfig Limit
	#Order allow,deny
	#Allow from all
	Require all granted
</Directory>