XAMPP – Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl environment in Windows

Its kinda weird that I’e already blogged about changing the MySQL root password in XAMPP and changing Apache’s port number in XAMPP, but not a single post about what the XAMPP is. Well, this post will answer the question of what is XAMPP and why should we care about it.

XAMPP – the development environment for developers

To put it short – XAMPP is a easy to use web server package that comes bundled with Apache, MySQL, PHP and Perl. XAMPP helps the developer to easily setup the PHP/Perl development environment. So, when you download and install XAMPP in your Windows machine, XAMPP installs all the above mentioned packages and configures them properly, so that you can start using the server packages out of the box. As taken from the XAMPP’s home page, the application supports following feature.

• Apache HTTPD 2.2.11 + Openssl 0.9.8i
• MySQL 5.1.33
• PHP 5.2.9
• phpMyAdmin 3.1.3.1
• XAMPP CLI Bundle 1.3
• FileZilla FTP Server 0.9.31

I came to know about XAMPP when I started learning PHP. That time, I was not comfortable with setting up a PHP development environment. So, I needed a out of a box solution which XAMPP fits perfectly. Within the minutes after the XMAPP installation, I could run my Apache server and MySQL database with a sample website. As XAMPP provides a control panel window, starting/stopping services are just a matter of mouse click. Since then, I’m using XAMPP for all my web developments. I used XAMPP to develop Timelinr and using it for hosting my wordpress blog locally.

Watch out for security in XAMPP

And one important point about XAMPP is the security. Basically XAMPP is intended for development purpose, means that many security features are disable by default. For example, the XAMPP MySQL ‘root’ user do not have any password. So, if you are planning to use XAMPP in production environment, it is important that you fix all the disabled security features in XAMPP. Do not worry, XAMPP provides a tool for fixing the security, which I’ll be explaining in my next post. Meanwhile, you can check ouy my earlier articles How to change MySQL ‘root’ user password in XAMPP and How to change XAMPP server port which explains tightening XAMPP security.

Please do share your experiences with XAMPP, if you’ve already used it. If not, you can download XAMPP here and experience it.

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