Building a PHP 5 Web Server on Windows IIS

With the recent release of PHP 5.0, many PHP developers might
be thinking about upgrading their existing PHP installations to the new
standard. Although PHP 5.0 may not be ready yet for a live environment, this
tutorial will show you how to build a PHP 5.0 server on Windows that would be
suitable for hosting live applications with future builds of PHP 5.x.

In general, a "dot zero" version of a new system has not been tried and tested
enough to be considered safe for production servers. With an application as
complex as PHP 5.0, it is an absolute certainty that bugs will be found, and
corrected promptly, within the coming months. I would expect a 5.0.1 version to
be released shortly, which may prove to be stable enough for live servers.

In the following tutorial, I will be working with the following software:

Windows 2000 Professional: I consider this to be the best version of

Windows that MS ever produced, I am using SP 3. These instructions should also
be appropriate, with some variations for IIS configurations, for Windows XP Pro,
Windows 2000 Server and Windows 2003 Server, but not Windows XP Home that is not
a proper network enabled operating system, and should be avoided at all costs!
Important Note: It is important to realise that IIS on Windows
2000 Pro has built-in 10 user connection maximum limit; as a result you should
use Windows 2000 Server for a live server, but Windows 2000 Pro or Windows XP
Pro should work fine for a test server. Thanks to Brian O'Flaherty for this
information.
IIS 5: This comes on the Windows 2K CD; you can also use 5.1 or 6
depending upon which operating system you are using. I am using IIS rather than
Apache 2 because IIS allows us to use pass through authentication in our PHP
applications (I will cover this in detail later), and generally believe that
Apache belongs on Unix/Linux for production servers; while if you must use
Windows for a web server, you might as well use IIS too!
MySQL 4.1.3 Beta: As of writing, this is still beta so should not be used
on a live server. I have been using it for the last couple of months, and found
it to be quite stable; therefore I believe that MySQL 4.1 will be released as an
official version soon. 4.1 provides some major improvements over 4.0.x, such as
sub queries, so I would recommend this version strongly.
PHP 5.0.0 Win 32: It goes without saying; you should download the Windows
version of PHP. I will be doing a manual build, so download the zip package
instead, rather than the Windows installer which only provides a basic install
of PHP 5.0.
PEAR::DB 1.6.5: I will be using the version of PEAR that comes with PHP
5.0, and downloading and installing DB 1.6.5, the PEAR database abstraction API
(I will explain all this later).
Aspell 0.50.3 and Aspell en 0.50.2: This application, along with the
relevant English dictionary (other languages are also available), allow us to
use spell checking functions in our PHP 5.x applications. FPDF 1.52: This is the
free PDF generating class that we will use in our PHP 5.x applications to
generate PDF document on the fly.

If you have never heard of some of these packages, don't worry I will explain
each one in turn before I describe how to install them. In general with these
installation tutorials, your system and version numbers will not exactly match
mine, so there may be different options or steps required to get your
configuration up-and-running, but hopefully these guidelines will provide all
the instructions you need.

You will find a section of links at the bottom of this page to the download
sites for all of the software you need to setup your server. Download the latest
versions of everything you need (I estimate about 50 MB in total for all
downloads), save them to a local folder on your C drive, then you are ready to
begin.
2. Installing IIS
on Windows 2000
The first thing we need to do is set up IIS
from our Windows 2K CD. IIS (Internet Information Service) is Microsoft's
equivalent of Apache, a HTTP server that will run on your PC, listening to a
network port (by default port 80) on your machine for HTTP requests, and
responding to these requests, normally requests for HTML pages, by sending the
HTML page to the client machine looking for the data.

You could use Apache 2.x, or some other web server, for this step instead, but I
do not discuss Apache sever configuration options at any stage so you might get
lost. I use a LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL PHP) test server at home, and Windows IIS
servers in work, so am comfortable with either environment. Therefore, I may
publish a tutorial on setting up a LAMP server with PHP 5.0 at a later date,
which is a radically different process to the one we are about to follow.

2.1 Installation Steps

Insert your Windows 2000 CD, and kill any start-up screen
that pops up.
Click Start -> Settings -> Control Panel, and then double
click Add/Remove Programs.
On the left panel, click Add/Remove Windows Components.

On the pop-up window that appears, click on the tick box

beside Internet Information Services (IIS).

5. Click Next, Finish and then you may require a restart (hey,
it is Windows!).
Now to test out IIS, start up Internet
Explorer and type in http://localhost/ as the site to visit: you should
get the default "Welcome to IIS 5.0" web page.
2.2 Enabling Support for Detecting Usernames
In my experience building Intranet-based PHP
applications, I have found that many users prefer systems that can automatically
log them in based on their network credentials. Here we are operating on the
principal that if they were able to log onto a network workstation, then they
must possess a valid username and password. Rather than asking them to login
again to our PHP applications, we can grab the client's network credentials,
including the NT username, and login the user automatically, a technique often
termed "pass-through authentication".

Pass-through authentication is not possible for Internet-based applications; you

will still have to use manual logins and session management. For Internet IIS
server set-ups, you can ignore the following steps.

Click Start -> Settings -> Control Panel.

Double-click Administrative Tools.
Double-click Internet Services Manager.
On the Tree tab on the left, click the plus sign beside
your computer's name, right-click the Default Web Site icon, then choose
Properties.
Click the Directory Security tab, and then in the
anonymous access section choose Edit.

6. Now in the dialog that appears, un-check the checkbox

beside Anonymous access to disable anonymous access to your site. It is then
safe to click OK in any subsequent window, and then close the IIS manager window
when you are done.
Now when any browser attempts to connect to
your default website, it must pass its network credentials to the IIS web
server, otherwise the connection will be refused. Later on in this tutorial, I
will explain to you how you can access the environment variables containing the
NT username in you PHP scripts.
3. Installing MySQL 4.1+

Now that we have a functioning web server

installed, we will install the next major component, our MySQL database server.
The database server works on a similar principal to the HTTP server; that is it
runs on Windows as a background service, while listening on a network port for
SQL requests for data, then serving up the results of those queries to the
clients that requested them.

As I stated above, I believe it is safe to started using MySQL 4.1.x at this

stage, as I do not believe it will remain a beta (test) release for much longer.
Installing MySQL is a simple process on Windows, follow the steps below.

3.1 Installation Steps

Unzip the zip file you downloaded containing the latest

version of MySQL 4.1.x to a local folder.
Within the local folder, you will find SETUP.exe .
Run this program to begin the installation.
When asked, install the program to C:\mysql .
(this should be the default option).
Choose the Typical installation option.

When the server is installed, we must start it.

In C:\mysql\bin you will find a program called windmysqladmin.exe
. Run this to start the server. If you like, you can add a shortcut to this
program to your start menu to get it to start automatically when you start
Windows.
Now test the server as described below.

Start a DOS prompt, and type C:\mysql\bin\mysql

. You should get the following screen:

At the MySQL prompt, type show databases;

and press return. By default, you will only have two databases to begin with.
Now type exit and return to exit the MySQL client.
3.2 Understanding the Windows Path Environment Variable

Rather than having to type C:\mysql\bin\mysql

, it would be nicer to simply have to type mysql like any other DOS
command. We can do this by adding the C:\mysql\bin folder to the Path
variable in Windows. Do the following:

Right-click the My Computer icon on your desktop, then

choose properties.
Click the Advanced tab, and then click Environment
Variables.
In the list of System Variables, choose Path, and then
click Edit.
At the end of the list of local folders, type ;C:\mysql\bin
(the semi-colon is required!), and press ok.

3.3 Securing the Root Account and Removing Anonymous Accounts

When installed, MySQL does not set a

password for the MySQL root account, which is the administrator account for the
entire system. This account needs to be locked down immediately for security
reasons. We will also remove the anonymous user accounts from the default
install:

At a DOS prompt, type mysqladmin -u root password

yourpassword (where yourpassword is of your choosing).

Notice how you did not have to give the full

path to the mysqladmin program? That is in the C:\mysql\bin folder also, which
is now on the system path. Now we will connect to MySQL as the root user, and
remove the anonymous access accounts:

At a DOS prompt, type mysql -u root --password=yourpassword

Run the following at the MySQL prompt:

USE mysql
DELETE FROM user WHERE User='';
EXIT
Type mysqladmin reload in the DOS window.

Now when you try to access the server by

simply typing mysql and no username and password, you will get an access
denied error. You must now use the root account, with the password that you have
set.
4. Installing PHP 5

Installing PHP itself is quite straightforward; the difficulty

lies in configuring IIS to use it! There are a number of programs contained
within the standard Win 32 distribution, for example it contains two versions of
the PHP interpreter that we can use with IIS. The first is a DLL (Dynamic Link
Library) that contains an ISAPI module for IIS. This module will run as a
persistent interpreter in IIS, one that does not need to be called externally,
so in theory should provide the best performance.

In reality, I have found the ISAPI module to be unstable with PHP 5 and IIS on
Windows, often causing access violations. These issues will most likely be
resolved in time, and may be by the time that you are reading this.

The second version, a standard C executable, is the one that we will be using.
This runs under IIS as an external CGI (Common Gateway Interface) call, similar
to the way Perl/CGI works, so as a result is not as quick as the ISAPI module,
but it is very stable. In the trade-off between speed and stability, we should
always favour stability for a live production server.
4.1 Installation Steps

Create a folder called PHP on the C drive root.

Unzip the contents of the zip file you downloaded for PHP
5 into C:\PHP
In C:\PHP , rename php.ini-dist to
php.ini
You may want to add C:\PHP onto the system path
variable, as you did for MySQL in the previous section.
That's it! Now onto configuring PHP 5.
4.2 Working with the php.ini File
The C:\PHP\php.ini for is the main
configuration file for PHP on our server, so we will be spending quite a bit of
time working with this file. Open it up now with a text editor, you will find it
to be very well commented and easy to work with. This is a good example of the
difference between open source software and commercial software, for example IIS
uses a difficult-to-navigate tab-based GUI (Graphical User Interface) to
configure the server, while Apache uses a text file similar to the one that PHP
uses called httpd.conf . Personally, I like this simple no-nonsense
approach.
4.3 Enabling E-mail Support
If you have access to a mail sever, for
example an Exchange server, then you can instruct PHP to use this server to send
mails from its mail() function. Modify the following lines in your
php.ini file to pint to the network address of your mail server, where
available:

[mail function]
; For Win32 only.
SMTP = mailserver.mydomain.com
smtp_port = 25

PHP will now route e-mails from the mail() function to this sever.

4.4 Configuring IIS to use PHP

Now we need to get IIS using PHP 5 to
interpret files with the .php file extension. As stated previously, we
will be using the CGI executable version of PHP 5 with IIS for stability
reasons.

Click Start -> Settings -> Control Panel.

Double-click Administrative Tools .

Double-click Internet Services Manager .

On the Tree tab on the left, click the plus sign

beside your computer's name, right-click the Default Web Site icon,
then choose Properties .
Choose the Home Directory tab, then choose
Configuration (near the bottom)
Click Add , then Browse .
Navigate to C:\PHP\php-cgi.exe , and select this.

Add in .php as the extension, and tick Check

that file exists .

Now click OK on all subsequent windows, and

exit Internet Services Manager .
Open up C:\PHP\php.ini in a text editor, and
replace the line:

; cgi.force_redirect = 1

with:

cgi.force_redirect = 0

As stated in the comment in the php.ini file, you MUST turn this off to get
PHP to work as a CGI in IIS.
Save your modified php.ini file. Now in C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\
create the following PHP script:

<?php

phpinfo();

?>

And save it as info.php

 
Start Internet Explorer, and visit the address http://localhost/info.php

If everything has been setup correctly, you

should get a screen similar to the following one:

If you scroll down on this page, you will see that it details
everything about your PHP installation, which is a very useful guide for
installation purposes. I will refer back to this page frequently throughout the
rest of this tutorial as "the PHP info page"; you can take this to mean
http://localhost/info.php in your web browser.

You should also be able to find your username stored in an environment variable
on this page, normally in something like $_SERVER["AUTH_USER"] or
$_SERVER["LOGON_USER"], which you can access from your PHP scripts (assuming you
followed the steps to disable anonymous access in IIS).
4.5 Enabling MySQL Support
There are two separate APIs (Application
Programmers Interface) available for MySQL with PHP 5.x. The standard MySQL API
is the one that came with PHP 4.x, while the new MySQL Improved API (or
mysqli ) contains all the new PHP functions for accessing the new features
of MySQL 4.1 and above, such as stored procedures that will be introduced in
MySQL 5.

To summarise, to support legacy PHP applications, we should install the mysql

API, while to support future PHP applications, we should install the new mysqli
API. The best solution is to install both.

In the php.ini file, replace the line:

extension_dir = "./"

with

extension_dir = "./ext"

Or to reflect where your extension DLL files are for PHP 5, they are usually
in C:\PHP\ext (hence the relative path "./ext" should work fine).

In the php.ini file, replace:

; extension=php_mysql.dll

with

extension=php_mysql.dll

Or if it is not already there, then add it in the same section as the other
extension files listed.
Now add:
extension=php_mysqli.dll

To the extension section of the php.ini file, to enable the mysqli

extension.

Reload the PHP info page, and scroll down until you find a section on mysql
and another on mysqli.

4.6 Enabling GD Support for Graphics

GD 2.x allows us to build PHP applications
that can generate PNG and JPEG images on the fly, and send them to the client's
Internet browser. This functionality is particularly useful for generating
charts based on data stored in our MySQL database.

To enable GD 2.x to support:

Replace the line:

;extension=php_gd2.dll

with

extension=php_gd2.dll

(or add it if it doesn't exist) in the extensions section of the php.ini

file.
 
Reload your PHP info page, you should now see an entry
for GD 2.x.

4.7 Placing FPDF on the Include Path for PDF Support

FPDF is a PHP class that allows us to generate

PDF documents, which is a great file format for saving documents in, or printing
documents from. As with GD, the contents of our PDF files can be based upon the
contents of our MySQL database.

FPDF does not need to be installed, it simply needs to be extracted from is zip
into a suitable location. The best place to put this is on the include path for
PHP.

The include path is the first place that PHP will look in for a file that is
included without a location being specified, for example:

include('myfile.php');

When this line of code is executed, PHP will look for myfile.php in the current
folder, and in the folder(s) specified in the include path directive in the
php.ini file. If it cannot find the file, it will throw an error.

To make FPDF available universally on the server:

In the php.ini file, replace:

;include_path = ".;c:\php\includes"

with

include_path = ".;c:\php\includes"
 
Create the folder C:\PHP\includes
 
Unzip the contents of the FPDF zip file you downloaded to
C:\PHP\includes
 

Now when you want to use FPDF, all you have to do

is use:

require_once('fpdf.php');

...to include the class from anywhere on your server.

5
. Installing PEAR
PEAR (PHP Extension and Application
Repository) is an object-oriented (OO) framework used for the distribution of
various classes that can be used freely in your PHP applications. One of the
most widely used PEAR extensions is DB, the database-independent abstraction
layer that provides a common API for use with all of the major database severs,
including Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MS SQL Server 2000 and many more.

Firstly, we will install the PEAR framework, and then we will install the DB
extension. The process for installing the extensions from PEAR are all the same,
so here we are using DB as an example.
5.1 Installation Steps

Start a DOS prompt, then type cd C:\PHP

Type go-pear
Press enter to continue
PEAR will ask you for details on your network proxy
server (if you have access to one) so that it can automatically download
packages from the PEAR website. Skip this, just press enter.
PEAR will then give you a summary of the directory
structure for your PHP installation. The key thing to confirm is that the
PHP prefix is C:\PHP . Press enter if everything looks ok.

On the next screen, it is important to choose

n for no. If you choose Y , PEAR will attempt to connect to
the Internet (hence the need for the proxy server account settings).

PEAR will ask to change the include path for PHP, say no
( n ).
When PEAR installs, change your include path in your
php.ini file to:

include_path = ".;c:\php\includes;c:\php\pear"

5.2 Installing PEAR::DB Database API

At the DOS prompt, under C:\PHP, type pear list

(enter) to display a list of all of the installed PEAR packages.

Now copy the DB tgz file (the version I downloaded was

called DB-1.6.5.tgz ) to C:\PHP
In DOS, type pear install DB-1.6.5.tgz

You should get a message saying install ok .

Type pear list to confirm DB is on the list

As with FPDF, you can now use:

require_once('DB.php');

From anywhere to start using PEAR::DB in your code, as C:\PHP\PEAR is now

also on your include path (this is where PEAR will install all of its PHP class
files).
6. Installing Aspell for
Spell-check Support
The Aspell application allows you to use spell checking in
your applications. Originally only available for Linux, it has been ported over
to Windows and PHP support for it is available through the Pspell DLL extension.
Installing the Aspell program and English dictionary are easy as they come as
standard Windows setup programs:
6.1 Installing the Aspell Program, English Dictionary and
Pspell PHP Extension

First run the Aspell setup program, the version I

downloaded was called Aspell-0-50-3-3-Setup.exe
When Aspell is installed, install
Aspell-en-0.50-2-3.exe , the English language dictionary (other
languages are also available).
Now in the extension section of the php.ini file, replace
the line:

; extension=php_pspell.dll

with

extension=php_pspell.dll

(or create this line if it does not already exist)

You might want to add the path to the Aspell executable,
normally C:\Program Files\Aspell\bin , to the path variable. In that
location you will find the Aspell console application, as well as a couple
of DLLs.
Copy the DLL aspell-15.dll to C:\PHP .

Now when you check your PHP info page, you should now an
entry for pspell saying that it is enabled.

7. Download Resources

Here is a collection of URLs for downloading

the packages mentioned in this tutorial. As always with the Internet, I cannot
provide any guarantee that all of these sites will remain live, or change
location, in time; so a bit of searching on Google may be required to find what
you need.
 

Resource

URL

Description

PHP
http://www.php.net/

The home site for PHP, from here you can access the
download section, the online manual, and also keep in touch with other
PHP-related news.

PEAR

http://pear.php.net/

The PEAR home site, where you can browse and download
all of the PEAR packages, as well as access the PEAR manual.

MySQL

http://www.mysql.com/

The MySQL home site, which contains all of the

downloads for MySQL, including various client GUI tools for your
databases, as well as the excellent PDF version of the MySQL reference
manual.

Aspell Win 32 Port

http://aspell.net/win32/

Here is the Windows port for the Aspell GNU

distribution; you can also download all of the language dictionaries
from this location.

FPDF

http://www.fpdf.org/

The home site for the FPDF project, as well as

containing the zip file download, it also has an extensive collection of
examples of how to use the class in your PHP code.

By John Collins
About the Author:
John Collins is a freelance web developer and software design consultant from
Dublin, Ireland.  You can find more articles by him at his home site

http://www.design-ireland.net/

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