We now have Apache and PHP on a USB Key. We need a database, so we’re going for MySQL. Unfortunately, this step is much like getting Apache working. We have to download the installer from the MySQL site and install it. Then we take a copy of the installed directory and copy it onto the USB key and uninstall from the host machine.

Once we have this copy, we need to create a batch file to launch it and test it. This removes the need for a custom my.ini with path fixes, because we can pass those items on the command line. My batch file contains:

\development\mysql\bin\mysqld-nt.exe --basedir=/development/mysql --datadir=/development/mysql/data --port=3306 --console --standalone

We should now have a working Apache, PHP and MySQL, and we just need to tie it all together. To do this, I’m going back to the firepages method. I have a start.php script that contains the following:

<?php
echo "starting MySQL ....\n";
pclose(
    popen(
        'start \development\mysql\bin\mysqld-nt.exe --basedir=/development/mysql --datadir=/development/mysql/data --port=3306 --console --standalone'
        ,'r' )
    );
echo "starting apache....\n";
flush();
pclose(popen('start \development\apache\bin\apache.exe','r'));
flush();
sleep(5);
echo 'opening localhost';
exec( 'start http://localhost:8080/');
?>

And a start.bat file that launches PHP in an appropriate fashion to finish that off:

/development/php/php.exe -c /development/php/php.ini -f /development/start.php

There we go. All done. Of course, this could be acheived by downloading XAMPP (Lite), however, this way we know how our environment hangs together and can easily upgrade and extend it.

At a later date, I’ll be getting PEAR working, installing XDebug and getting a PHP4 instance in here. But for now, we have a sufficient development environment to get on with things.

Popularity: 25% [?]

This is version 1 of this entry and was posted 1 year, 5 months ago on Saturday, May 12th, 2007 at 5:00 pm and is filed under Portable Development. It's popularity ranking is Popularity: 25% [?]. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. This is the first version of this post.