NetBeans for PHP

Ubuntu, PHP, NetBeans - part I

This article is about installing PHP environment - PHP, Apache, MySQL and xDebug in Ubuntu 8.04. Everything is available through the default Ubuntu repositories, so it should not be hard. I did this last week, when I prepared a machine for our UI study. It's expected that you have already installed Ubuntu or you use VirtuaBox and you have installed Ubuntu as a virtual machine.

Open a terminal. You will need to install all the parts as root, so you have to execute commands trough sudo or  you can in the terminal write command

$ sudo bash

and from this time all what you do in this terminal you do as root. There are the steps for installing the PHP development environment:

1. Install Appache web server
   
   apt-get install apache2
   
   
2. Install MySQL server
   
   apt-get install mysql-server
   
   The installation of MySQL server will ask for password for root user. It's not mandatory, but I recommend to enter a password.
   
   
3. Install PHP 5
   
   apt-get install php5
   
   
4. Install MySQL extension for PHP
   
   apt-get install php5-mysql
   
   
5. Install xDebug extension for PHP - the extension for debugging.
   
   apt-get install php5-xdebug
   
   

This all what you have to install. Now we will set up Apache and PHP.

6. Setup the Apache web server to use users web sites
   
   After installing Apache the server should be running. If you click this link http://localhost/ the Firefox is opened and you should see the same content as is on the picture. 
   
   
   
   
   But when you try the url, which acces web sites in your home folder, it fails. Instead petr write your username:).
   
   
   
   
   To get it work you have to:
   • Enable userdir module in Apache web server
     
     a2enmod userdir
     
     
   • Create public_html folder in your homedir (do it uder your account, not as root)
     
     mkdir public_html
     
     
   • Restart Apache web server
     
     /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
     
     If you do it correctly after refreshing Firefox you should see empty content of the folder as on the picture.
     
     
     
   
   
   
7. Enable remote debugging in xDebug
   
   In the folder public_html create index.php file with content:

   <?php
        phpinfo();
   ?>
   

   Refresh Firefox and you should see how the PHP runtime is setup. Search for the property xdebug.remote_enable property. By default this property is switched off as you can see on the picture.
   
   
   
   
   To enable this property you have to open file /etc/php5/conf.d/xdebug.ini and add line
   
   xdebug.remote_enable=on
   
   and restart the Apache web server
   
   /etc/init.d/apache2 restart