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I'd like to use php includes to streamline the process of making a few web pages. The problem with that, however, is that I can't seem to test them locally. They work fine on the server, but my computer doesn't seem to understand them. I tried installing php and apache but it didn't seem to work. What do I need to do to set up a php testing server locally?

Jonathan
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  • Since php is server side scripting you need to get your apache server working with php enabled. – Zoke Jan 17 '12 at 20:10
  • But by installing the packages `php5` and `apache` this should work out of the box as far as I know. – Georg Schölly Jan 17 '12 at 20:13
  • Use php includes (`include 'file';`)? Not sure I get that one. If you load localhost in a browser, do you see the generic Apache site? Have you `sudo apt-get install php5`? –  Jan 17 '12 at 23:50

2 Answers2

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Install the package libapache2-mod-php5 (which will also install the package for the webserver: apache2). Files can be put in /var/www.

If you then open http://localhost/index.html in your browser, /var/www/index.html is displayed.

The default settings are pretty secure, PHP errors are logged to /var/log/apache2/error_log and not showed in the browser. To change this on a development machine, edit /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini and change display_errors = Off to display_errors = On.

Some modules are not installed by default. If you do image processing, you likely need the GD library for PHP, package php5-gd. To get a list of all available modules, open a terminal, type sudo apt-get install php5- and hit Tab twice to get a list.

See also: How to avoid using sudo when working in /var/www?

Community
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Lekensteyn
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Install taskel & the LAMP stack

sudo apt-get install tasksel

sudo tasksel install lamp-server

You should now have an apache server with php and mysql.

IndieBlock
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