How to make a local PHP server

"Learn how to set up a local PHP server. Follow our simple example to get it done quickly!"

Setting Up a Local PHP Server

The first step in setting up a local PHP server is to install a web server on your local machine. There are a few different web servers that you can use, such as Apache, Nginx, or IIS. For this example, we'll be using Apache.

Installing Apache on Windows is relatively straightforward. First, download the Apache httpd binary from the Apache website. Once you have the binary downloaded, extract the files to a directory of your choice. Next, open the command line, navigate to the directory where you extracted the files, and run the following command:

httpd -k install

This will install Apache as a Windows service, and it should start automatically. You can check if the service is running by opening the Windows Services panel and looking for the Apache service. You can also check if Apache is running by opening your web browser and navigating to http://localhost. If Apache is running, you should see a page with some information about the server.

The next step is to install PHP. Download the PHP binary from the PHP website, and extract the files to a directory of your choice. Once the files have been extracted, open the command line and navigate to the directory where you extracted the files. Run the following command to install PHP as a Windows service:

php -i install

This will install PHP as a Windows service, and it should start automatically. You can check if the service is running by opening the Windows Services panel and looking for the PHP service. You can also check if PHP is running by opening your web browser and navigating to http://localhost/phpinfo.php. If PHP is running, you should see a page with some information about the server.

The next step is to configure Apache to use PHP. Open the Apache configuration file (httpd.conf) in a text editor, and add the following lines:

LoadModule php7_module "C:/php/php7apache2_4.dll"
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .php
PHPIniDir "C:/php"

These lines will tell Apache to use the PHP module, and they will also tell Apache where to find the PHP configuration file. Once these lines have been added to the configuration file, save the file and restart Apache. You can check if Apache is using PHP by creating a file named test.php in the Apache document root directory, containing the following code:

<?php
    phpinfo();
?>

If Apache is using PHP, you should see a page with some information about the server when you open http://localhost/test.php in your web browser. If everything is working correctly, you should now have a working local PHP server.