WampServer

Hello there

Bear with me if this is a stupid question, but please let me start by explaining the situation.

I am a long time PHP and MySQL developer and have used Wamp for some time however as much as I am an experienced developer, I have almost no experience setting up servers and such. I'm currently working on a web-based system for my current employer however due to corporate restrictions we cannot host the system online so will need to have my system running on a networked drive which everyone could then access from their own computers.

My question is - is this possible or even reasonable? Would *every* user need to have WAMP installed on their computer? Or could a specific drive simply be set up with WAMP or something similar to allow PHP and MySQL to run on this drive?

We have an IT team in place who I'm sure will be able to do whatever is necessary, but I'm just trying to figure out my plan of attack for rolling the system out before approaching them. (If it helps, we already have numerous network drives in place so this aspect wouldn't need to be set up.)

Appreciate any help you can provide!

Thanks



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/09/2012 12:02AM by Efficated.

Depends on your internal "internet layout". But I think if you put your server "online" on your computer (where wamp is installed) all other people who are probably shared behind 1 router, are going to be able to connect to your computer and your installation on your router ip adress.

Most likely this ip addresses look like 192.168.... they are not accessible from out your network (at home, or me). As for Network drives, I have never worked with one, but if you can install wamp on them you could connect to that ip adres.

In order to make wamp "online" (on the public web) you need to forward your router port 80, something that is not default.

The worst thing you could do is install wamp on every computer, as every client will be his own host, but nothing will be shared. (as everything remains localhost)

hope this helps

Efficated,

I think you are basically talking about an INTRANET. In other words you ONLY want your system to be visible from inside your clients corporate network.

1. Remember wamp is just a friendly way of installing apache, php and mysql onto a windows based PC.
So you only need install wamp ( apache/php/mysql ) onto one PC in the network. Remember Apache is a web server.
As long as that PC's ip address it is visible to all your potential users it doesn't matter where that is on their network.
You will probably need the liase with the internal IT team to get this to happen via internal DNS or whatever.

Depending on how big your system and database is, it could all sit on a single PC ( which is now your server ) or if more disk space is required it is easy enough to tell mysql to place its database files on another drive or multiple other drives be they network or local. That drive could be anywhere visible to the PC running that instance of mysql.

If this system is very busy you could even run apache on PC1 and mysql on PC2 and

Remember to put wamp ONLINE so it is visible from other PC's than the one it is running on.
You may need to review the httpd.conf file to allow access only from PC in one or more of the corporate subnets.

-------- this is the OFFLINE STATE ---------
#
# Controls who can get stuff from this server.
#

# onlineoffline tag - don't remove
Order Deny,Allow
Deny from all
Allow from 127.0.0.1
--------END OFFLINE STATE ----------------

May need to change this to something like

-------- this is the ONLINE STATE ---------
#
# Controls who can get stuff from this server.
#

# onlineoffline tag - don't remove
Order Deny,Allow
Deny from all
Allow from 127.0.0.1
Allow from 192.168.1
Allow from 192.168.2
Allow from 192.168.3
--------END ONLINE STATE ----------------

Hey this is great information. Do you think you can help me go into depth about this. basically i have a program that runs on mysql and wamp using a database of information stored. such as phone numbers names etc. I need to get my other computers to access this data that is stored on the computer that is running the local host. how can i do this exactly. Im have no experience in this what so ever. where do I type these commands. can you teach me step by step. thank you in advance

Assuming your application is in c:\wamp\www\address


A quick and DIRTY way is to
Find out what IP address your wamp server is using
From a command windows on the wamp server PC execute > ipconfig

Look at the "IPV4 Address" this is the current ip address of the pc on you LAN.
lets assume 192.168.2.10

Then just "Put Online" the wamp server.
left click the wamp manager icon -> Put Online


Now you can address your application as

http://192.168.2.10/address

from any other PC on your network

The problem with this is that if your users use

http://192.168.2.10

they can see the wamp configuration page.

They would be able to click on the Projects link that would say "address" ( assuming thats the folder name of your application) to launch your app which is ok i suppose.

They should not be able to play with any of the phpMyAdmin, sqlbuddy etc links as they are protected via other mechanisms and can only be run from the PC running WAMP, but they would see them.

The other problem is that when you reboot your wamp server PC it may get allocated another IP address by your router, most use DHCP to dynamically allocate ip address's as needed and dont guarantee to use the same address for the same pc.


Like i say this is a quick and dirty method. A more secure and stable method would involve making the IP address of wamp server Static ( would need the admin password for your router and a config change to the networking of that one PC )

Create at least one virtual host in apache, 2 would be better and allow you to have a LIVE and DEVELOPMENT version of your app should it ever need modification.

Add specific security to each VHOST folders so all or only specific PC on you lan can use this application.

Leave the WAMP Server offline so that no accidental access's could take place from your network.

Change the hosts file on all the other PC's in the network so that can address your web application with a nice name like

http://client-info.net

just an example.


This would involve a lot more changes and configurations and is open to many more mistakes even when you think you know what you are doing.


I short a full step by step description might take at least 2-3 hours to produce for someone who is a self confessed beginnner.

Of course somebody could do most of this for you using TeamViewer, all the work on the wamp server pc anyway. But you might find they would like paying for it as this is not a wamp problem..


Dont you have a local techy you could get to give you a hand?

Thank you so much. it worked perfectly, but Ive ran into another problem. it worked fine when i didnt set a root password. but once I set up the root password. and go to the other computer it says that its forbidden that i dont have the authorization to log in to that ip address. is there an extra step i need to take? thank you in advance

As a matter of fact. Now that i type my own ip address or type localhost into the address bar with the wamp server it wont grant me access. but if i put 127.0.0.1 it does grant me access



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/24/2012 04:12AM by kremble.

kremble Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thank you so much. it worked perfectly, but Ive
> ran into another problem. it worked fine when i
> didnt set a root password. but once I set up the
> root password. and go to the other computer it
> says that its forbidden that i dont have the
> authorization to log in to that ip address. is
> there an extra step i need to take? thank you in
> advance



I assume you are trying to use phpMyAdmin from a PC that is NOT the wamp server PC.

By default phpMyAdmin is setup to only allow access from 127.0.0.1 (localhost)
Reason being security, you dont want others messing with your database definitions!

Check C:\wamp\alias\phpmyadmin.conf
you will see
<Directory "C:/wamp/apps/phpmyadmin3.3.9/">
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride all
Order Deny,Allow
Deny from all
Allow from 127.0.0.1
</Directory>


Add a Allow from 192.168.x.y ( the ip address you want to use phpMyAdmin from )

You should not do an "Allow from All" as this allows anybody to use phpMyAdmin on your database
<Very Insecure>



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/24/2012 04:29PM by RiggsFolly.

kremble Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As a matter of fact. Now that i type my own ip
> address or type localhost into the address bar
> with the wamp server it wont grant me access. but
> if i put 127.0.0.1 it does grant me access


Sorry you need to be more specific.

Are yuo doing this from a pc that is not your WAMP Server?
Or from the WAMP Server PC?

THANKS it worked! you've been more than helpful. I know this might be a very specific question so feel free to turn it down,

but I'm using a software called collectionmax that uses the mysql databases now I've set up the wamp server on computer A which holds the databases. Computer C is another machine that is on the same network LAN.

When i open the software collectionmax on computer A it works perfectly.

On "computer C" when i type the IP address of "computer A" into the server box. it says server not found. after doing all the configurations we spoke of, it does allow access to phpmyadmin, but still says server not found through collection max.

I think it might be a port foward issue or a network issue. I've fowarded ports 80 and 3306 already but i still get the same problem.


EDIT* hey I found the problem it was because I had to set port on both windows firewall AND my router. Thanks anyways.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/2012 01:58AM by kremble.