XAMPP on external drive: mapping trouble?

jakob · 2006-08-29 14:19:01

VirtualHosts are handled a little differently in newer versions of XAMPP: they are now imported into the httpd-conf file from another file, the defaults are set more strict, and you need to counter the strict defaults to get your VirtualHosts to work. (This was probably my original problem, and I’ve been chasing ghosts making things worse all along.)

I think it is this last bit that was the biggest problem, Destry. Yesterday evening I tried to set up a new install on the laptop transferring information from my previous setup and ended up following your saga on apachefriends (BTW:thanks that you took the time to go back and comment earlier posts with solutions – that is uncommonly kind and was useful). I had an additional problem to start with, in that it seems that Adobe’s Version Cue also uses mySQL and won’t play with XAMPP. After disabling Version Cue, I did finally manage to get it working with Virtualhosts but only after a lot of fiddling and following of your thread. All in all it seems the setup is actually quite straightforward as long as you adopt the new way of doing vhosts. Once successfully set up, using the batch files or the controller for xampp from windows double-click is no problem for me.

Upshot: Your instructions on the textbook are good, although in the end my VirtualHost file does not exactly (but nearly) echo your example.

I did wish apachfriends had warned more about the change in virtualhost security settings and the separate virtualhosts file, though both make sense. It took a long time to find out, only a few characters different can halt the whole system and the 403 error was not very helpful in finding the source.

Destry · 2006-08-29 14:48:36

jakob wrote: Upshot: Your instructions on the textbook are good, although in the end my VirtualHost file does not exactly (but nearly) echo your example.

Good to know, thanks.

I did wish apachfriends had warned more about the change in virtualhost security settings and the separate virtualhosts file, though both make sense. It took a long time to find out, only a few characters different can halt the whole system and the 403 error was not very helpful in finding the source.

Exactly. One clear paragraph somewhere would have been all the difference between three-wasted days (four considering the time I had to reload projects and get my head in the game again) or 30 minutes. And during that whole time in the XAMPP forum I felt like Weinmann was playing snide cat and mouse games with me. I don’t think he really was (probably just a language thing), but sheesh, he wasn’t exactly explanatory either. XAMPPs entire Web presence could really benefit from a redesign, and better organization of its documentation, among othe things.

These stacks have a lot of positives, though. When I ever get around to the Linux thing and/or finally get my Mac, I’m sure I’ll look into LAMP and/or MAMP for similar ease of use.

marios · 2006-09-05 08:41:51

As a quick followup, in the procedure of adding XP to my network, (installing IE-7 RC1 as well, which does installation withot error messages), I also had the chance to try out some older XAMPP packages as well, including the new one as 7-zip).
Didn’t encounter any problems running any XAMPP package from any drive with the XAMPP control panel of course, not as a service)
I could start any package from any Drive without any conflicts, as long as I don’t have running another version at the same time.
If you really need the latter, then I think you have to change the port numbers.
It even worked from a netwok allocated storage share, but in the latter case wrecked after a while.(The reason here is, that I don’t have a proper way yet to change the file permissions on the kind of Samba shares that feed the network, so I wouldn’t recommend the latter.
I believe also that the invisible .DS_store files could cause trouble to Apache.
I tried the latter with mapped and unmapped shares , with a default html index page in the plblic site root folder with vhosts, and it allways gives me a 403 error page.

As a general rule, When something doesn’t work, eg.: Apache won’t start, take a look in the Apache error log file, as to track down, what the problem is, eg.: Typo in conf file, etc.

The additional conf files that are provided in the extras folder, are just there to ease maintenance, so you don’t have to scroll down the whole conf file each time.
Either way it should work.

hcgtv wrote:

Today, I find it easier to do the following:
a) Use the Apache 2.0.x msi installer
b) Use the MySQL 5.0.x msi installer
c) Use the PHP 5.1.x zip file and follow the instructions

@hcgtv, which installer packages are you using ?

Any instructions available that you know about ?
I used to prefer the XAMPP packages, since I couldn’t find any other packages, that would leave my system files alone, eg.: php.ini and such.
I think the same is true for the MAMPP package on OS-x as well.
It doesn’t really matter so much, which one to use since you can feed either one through the network
by changing the host files. (Router must be locked down for outbound traffic in the latter case)

A little nasty only, if you don’t want to switch off DHCP on your Router.

@Destry,

I followed your vhosts example update as well, and it works fine.
(There is a small leftover from cutting and pasting after the second block, which should be removed, whenever you have time)

regards, marios

Last edited by marios (2006-09-05 09:09:53)

Sencer · 2006-09-05 09:57:14

I’ve moved away from installing all the dev-related stuff onto my desktop machine. I much prefer using virtual machines which makes a lot of things easier. For example if you had the VMWare Player you could use one of the many ready-made virtual machines. For example here is a LAMP-image:
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/465 (I didn’t test this, I am building my own)

I am then using sshfs to mount the disk of the virtual-machine as a local drive to access the files. On Windows there are only a few commercial (but worthwhile) tools to do that (like sftpdrive;webdrive etc.), however many editors have sftp built-in.

Advantages include easily being able to have several images with different mysql/php versions for testing, being able to move all development stuff to a different machine in a matter of minutes, easily backing up or cloning a complete vm, doesn’t take up memory or resources when switched off. If you have a computer with at least 512 MB Ram I would recommend to go this way (usually about 96 MB RAM for the VM will be more than enough).

marios · 2006-09-05 11:56:38

I wanted to move away from desktop storage as well. I also wanted to try out a reliable storage/backup solution as well that suits the needs for a multi-operating-system/platform network environment.
I tested the above by purchasing two NSLU2 Linksys storage links hooked up to a cheap D-link switch to increase networkspeed and four WDMybook USB drives 250GB each, that would give me a cheap 1TB network/storage solution.Backup is scheduled at 4 o clock in the morning everyday from one disk to another.
The initial Idea was to have all files centralized and accessible rom anywhere on the network.
Also upgraded firmware (Unslung 6.8 on one device)
In order to make this solution work one would have to unsling to an external disk, and then install another Samba package, that is able to handle proper file permissions.
With the current Firwares from Linksys and the like, you cannot change a Folder permissions to be read write and executable for owner group and world, which makes this pretty useless for development.
I tested also weather , a folder would retain it’s original permissions once dragged onto a mounted smb share in MAC OS 10.4.7 and then dragged back into its original location, and it doesn’t.
Permissions are lost once placed on a mounted share and set to 700.

In order to unsecure your shares, so you can do development on them, the only way to go is jump on the LINUX Bandwagon, so I wouldn’t recommend this solution, if you are not an experienced Linux User.
(Still deciding about the latter)
(If only Linksys had left on option, to unsecure all the shares in the administration panel, I would have been very happy, apparently the Default Firmware runs the old Samba 2 version)

EDIT.: Samba 3 is capable to handle proper permissions and map permissions between PC/UNIX if you
have access to the conf file, so if you want to try the above some experience about SAMBA is usefull as well,
before you attempt this

regards, marios

Last edited by marios (2006-09-05 16:24:41)

hcgtv · 2006-09-05 13:49:40

marios wrote:

@hcgtv, which installer packages are you using ?

apache_2.0.59-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi
mysql-essential-5.0.24a-win32.msi
PHP 5.1.6 zip package

Install Apache first, then MySQL and then follow the instructions to install PHP. It took me a few tries to get it just right, where I wanted it to go and such.

My directory layout:
c:\usr-bin has all the runtime stuff
c:\var-lib has the MySQL databases and temp directories
c:\var-www has the html documents

The directory naming is similar to my Debian server, so it makes it easy to move projects around.

Destry · 2006-09-05 19:19:52

Sencer, that’s interesting. A little question: would a virtual machine (of some type) serve the same function as a SSH server? The reason I ask, when I was checking out the sshfs utility, it was talking about mapping to a SSH server (remotely). I’m guessing the virtual machine (VM) serves the same role and the mapping is to the VM?

Sencer · 2006-09-05 20:23:02

Destry wrote:

Sencer, that’s interesting. A little question: would a virtual machine (of some type) serve the same function as a SSH server?

It would be an emulated computer complete with it’s own harddisk and operating system (usually all contained within a file on the host system). It could be running linux or windows (though linux would be preferred, given that you can leave out all the GUI stuff and don’t have licensing issues), and it would likely have an ssh-server installed (or you could install one later, if it doesn’t).

The reason I ask, when I was checking out the sshfs utility, it was talking about mapping to a SSH server (remotely). I’m guessing the virtual machine (VM) serves the same role and the mapping is to the VM?

Yes, I use it to mount the guest’s file-system (VM’s filesystem) as a folder in the host’s filesytem. sshfs requires linux though.

I forgot to mention: If you are running Windows, you can also install a samba server on the virtual machine, and access that from windows networking neighbourhood, like you would shared folders from another pc. Though samba can sometimes be tricky to configure. And I am not sure if the ready-made VMs have that pre-installed (but I am pretty sure they would have sshd installed).

marios · 2006-09-05 21:35:23

Sencer wrote:

I forgot to mention: If you are running Windows, you can also install a samba server on the virtual machine, and access that from windows networking neighbourhood, like you would shared folders from another pc. Though samba can sometimes be tricky to configure. And I am not sure if the ready-made VMs have that pre-installed (but I am pretty sure they would have sshd installed).

Serving Samba shares from a PC still doesn’t make sense to me. Too much Dust, too much Power consumption and too clumsy.
Storage links are easier to keep alive even with a modest UPS, and the USB disks are spinning down by themselves if not in use.
(approximately 100- 110 WATT for a whole setup in my case)

I probably have to go back to school again and learn a little about handling file permissions on Samba before I can set up all that up correctly.
I had a quick look at the relevant VM pages, never really knew about it. If I understand that right, the license for a workstation package is at 189$.
(Is there any beta releases to get for free ?)
<a href=“http://www.vmware.com/vmwarestore/pricing.html”>commercial packages</a>.
I’ll make use of the evaluation license on top of a XP-PC to try this out, since I am tired of my old Knoppix CD anyway.
It would probably make sense to upgrade memory as well to a decent amount, just to have room for other stuff.

regards, marios

Last edited by marios (2006-09-05 21:36:00)

Sencer · 2006-09-05 22:09:15

marios wrote:

Serving Samba shares from a PC still doesn’t make sense to me. Too much Dust, too much Power consumption and too clumsy.

I think we are talking about different things, marios. I am talking about virutalization. Everything is on one computer. Samba in that context is to allow the host system to have access to the guest system (or the virtual machine, or virtual appliance or qemu-image or whatever else it is called). Everything is still on the same physical machine. Since mounting one harddrive (virtual or not) from two OSs will result in data-corruption on most filesystems, you take the reroute oer the guest system+ssh or gues-system+samba to allow the host system to acces the data in the virtual machine.

I had a quick look at the relevant VM pages, never really knew about it. If I understand that right, the license for a workstation package is at 189$.

“VMWare Workstation” is a software package with special features, and hence costs money (for example it allows you to make snapshots and revert to to them from a running vm). You don’t really need that though, if all you do is some web-dev. You can use the vmware-player (free, as in free beer) and use it with downloadable VMs (again free). However creating your own VMs is somewhat clumsy with the player (There are no GUI options for it, you have to do it by foot; plenty of webpages describe how to). Then there is vmware server which is also free of cost and allows you to create new VMs yourself.

Or if you want to go the free (as in free speech) Software route, you should look at *qemu*(Qemu Download), but you should definitely install the accelerator for it (free as well), otherwise it’s just too slow, IMHO. With qemu you can also use a ready-made lamp image:
http://www.rpath.org/rbuilder/project/lamp/releases

hcgtv · 2006-09-05 22:11:50

marios wrote:

I tested the above by purchasing two NSLU2 Linksys storage links hooked up to a cheap D-link switch to increase networkspeed and four WDMybook USB drives 250GB each, that would give me a cheap 1TB network/storage solution.Backup is scheduled at 4 o clock in the morning everyday from one disk to another.

What a coincidence, I purchased a WDMybook 500GB external USB this weekend. It took me 4 hours to rsync my Debian server to the USB drive on Saturday. On Sunday, after I synced up my VPS and home laptops to the server, I rsynced it again and it took only 20 minutes this time.

I got real tired of doing the DVD shuffle, now all my data is safely stored away in my safe until next weekend’s rsync.

Sencer · 2006-09-05 22:33:04

I find it pretty courageous to trust so much data to single harddisks. I mean, it always goes well for a couple of years, but sooner or later you are going to get harddrives that turn bad – and ou’re not alwas lucky enough to notice early enough. And running them connected via USB which prevents some drives from powering down into powersave-modes rather increases than decreses that risk.

If spending money on some external hardware is an option, I would go for something like a Buffalo or Infrant which offers Raid 1 or Raid 5 (though with current low costs of harddisks, I’d always choose Raid 1).

Remember failing harddrives is not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. And that can mean 8 years, 2 years, but it can also mean 3 months.

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#13 2006-08-29 14:19:01

Re: XAMPP on external drive: mapping trouble?

#14 2006-08-29 14:48:36

Re: XAMPP on external drive: mapping trouble?

#15 2006-09-05 08:41:51

Re: XAMPP on external drive: mapping trouble?

#16 2006-09-05 09:57:14

Re: XAMPP on external drive: mapping trouble?

#17 2006-09-05 11:56:38

Re: XAMPP on external drive: mapping trouble?

#18 2006-09-05 13:49:40

Re: XAMPP on external drive: mapping trouble?

#19 2006-09-05 19:19:52

Re: XAMPP on external drive: mapping trouble?

#20 2006-09-05 20:23:02

Re: XAMPP on external drive: mapping trouble?

#21 2006-09-05 21:35:23

Re: XAMPP on external drive: mapping trouble?

#22 2006-09-05 22:09:15

Re: XAMPP on external drive: mapping trouble?

#23 2006-09-05 22:11:50

Re: XAMPP on external drive: mapping trouble?

#24 2006-09-05 22:33:04

Re: XAMPP on external drive: mapping trouble?

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