Hosting Setup

We can’t cover all possible setups. We will restrict ourselves to examples taken from our own development configurations for a local install on a personal computer.

We propose in the following configurations less secure parameters or very high values because we describe here a personal installation which will not be exposed to the Internet. We are more concerned with practicality than security. For security it would be better to have a restrictive approach where you only open features or add resources if they are necessary according to your situation.

WinNMP on Windows

WinNMP is really easy to use and come with a good documentation. Download the installer and install WinNMP at C:\WinNMP. After that just follow the section How to create a new Project of its documentation. Once this step is completed, you could install WIKINDX in the new virtual host, in C:\WinNMP\WWW\wikindx folder.

Virtual host Setup

Open WinNMP Manager by clicking the taskbar or desktop icon, then click on New Project icon, choose a project name like wikindx, hit Enter or click Save Project.

WinNMP Manager

Accept the User Account Control warning about WinNMP.exe. This is required to map the domain name wikindx.test to localhost, for testing SEF links and other Nginx rewrite rules.
Check Enable Local Virtual Server.
Don’t change other options since your local installation is a production installation. You are not setting a local host to do some devloppement of a production website.
Click Save to close the Edit Project window

Edit Project

The project database wikindx and MariaDB user wikindx are already created automatically (Adminer, a web ui db admin is available at http://localhost/tools/adminer.php).
The default MariaDb(MySql) host is localhost with username root and no password.

MySql server:       'localhost'
MySql user:         'root' or 'wikindx'
MySql password:     '' (no password)
MySql database:     'wikindx'

Type in your browser http://wikindx.test. You can see a welcome message with some instructions. Some tools are also available at http://localhost.

At this point you have a working virtual host ready for installing some PHP code. We need a few more tweaks to accommodate WIKINDX.

PHP configuration (php.ini)

Edit the file C:\WinNMP\conf\php.ini (see List of php.ini directives on www.php.net).
Comment open_basedir directive.
Comment disable_functions directive.
Comment disable_classes directive.
Change for memory_limit = 512M (max memory consumption by process).
Change for post_max_size = 128M (max size of one HTTP request).
Change for upload_max_filesize = 128M (Max size of one uploaded file).
Change for max_file_uploads = 20 (number of files uploaded at same time).
Change for date.timezone = Europe/Paris (your timezone).
Enable extensions:
- extension = php_bz2.dll
- extension = php_curl.dll
- extension = php_gd.dll (before PHP 8.0 this extension was called php_gd2.dll)
- extension = php_intl.dll
- extension = php_mbstring.dll
- extension = php_exif.dll
- extension = php_sockets.dll
- extension = php_openssl.dll
- extension = php_fileinfo.dll
- extension = php_ldap.dll
- extension = php_mysqli.dll
- extension = php_zip.dll (this extension is needed since PHP 8.2)

Sample of a php.ini file:

; Generated by NMP - Configuration Editor
engine = On
zend.ze1_compatibility_mode = Off
short_open_tag = On
asp_tags = Off
precision = 14
y2k_compliance = On
;output_buffering = 4096
zlib.output_compression = Off
implicit_flush = Off
unserialize_callback_func =
serialize_precision = 100
allow_call_time_pass_reference = Off
safe_mode_allowed_env_vars = PHP_
safe_mode_protected_env_vars = LD_LIBRARY_PATH
;open_basedir = "c:/winnmp"
include_path = ".;c:/winnmp/include"
;disable_functions="allow_url_fopen, disk_free_space, diskfreespace, dl, eval, exec, fp, fput, ftp_connect, ftp_exec, ftp_get, ftp_login, ftp_nb_fput, ftp_put, ftp_raw, ftp_rawlist, highlight_file, ini_alter, ini_get_all, ini_restore, inject_code, msg_receive, msg_send, openlog, passthru, pcntl_alarm, pcntl_exec, pcntl_fork, pcntl_get_last_error, pcntl_getpriority, pcntl_setpriority, pcntl_signal, pcntl_signal_dispatch, pcntl_sigprocmask, pcntl_sigtimedwait, pcntl_sigwaitinfo, pcntl_strerror, pcntl_wait, pcntl_waitpid, pcntl_wexitstatus, pcntl_wifexited, pcntl_wifsignaled, pcntl_wifstopped, pcntl_wstopsig, pcntl_wtermsig, popen, posix_ctermid, posix_getgrgid, posix_getgrnam, posix_getlogin, posix_getpwuid, posix_kill, posix_mkfifo, posix_setegid, posix_seteuid, posix_setgid, posix_setpgid, posix_setsid, posix_setuid, posix_uname, proc_close, proc_get_status, proc_nice, proc_open, proc_terminate, putenv, sem_acquire, sem_get, shell_exec, shm_attach, shm_get_var, shm_put_var, shm_remove, shmop_close, shmop_delete, shmop_open, shmop_write, show_source, symlink, syslog, system, xmlrpc_entity_decode"
; disable_classes = Reflection, ReflectionClass, ReflectionExtension, ReflectionFunction, ReflectionFunctionAbstract, ReflectionMethod, ReflectionObject, ReflectionParameter, ReflectionProperty, Reflector
expose_php = Off
max_execution_time = 120
max_input_time = 15
memory_limit = 512M
error_reporting = E_ALL
display_errors = On
display_startup_errors = Off
log_errors = On
log_errors_max_len = 1024
ignore_repeated_errors = Off
ignore_repeated_source = Off
report_memleaks = On
track_errors = Off
html_errors = On
error_log = "c:/winnmp/log/php_error.log"
mail.log = "c:/winnmp/log/php_mail.log"
curl.cainfo="c:/winnmp/src/cacert.pem"
openssl.cafile="c:/winnmp/src/cacert.pem"
sendmail_from = "WinNMP@localhost"
;sendmail_path = '"c:/winnmp/bin/msmtp/msmtp.exe" -C "c:/winnmp/conf/msmtp.ini" -t'
sendmail_path = '"c:/winnmp/bin/php" -n -f "c:/winnmp/include/tools/mailtodisk.php" --'
variables_order = "EGPCS"
register_globals = Off
register_long_arrays = Off
register_argc_argv = Off
auto_globals_jit = On
post_max_size = 128M
magic_quotes_gpc = Off
magic_quotes_runtime = Off
magic_quotes_sybase = Off
auto_prepend_file =
auto_append_file =
default_mimetype = "text/html"
doc_root =
user_dir =
cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0
file_uploads = On
upload_tmp_dir = "c:/winnmp/tmp"
upload_max_filesize = 128M
max_file_uploads = 20
allow_url_fopen = Off
allow_url_include = Off
default_socket_timeout = 180
extension_dir = "ext"
enable_dl = Off
date.timezone = Europe/Paris
define_syslog_variables = Off
sql.safe_mode = Off

mysql.allow_persistent = On
mysql.max_persistent = -1
mysql.max_links = -1
mysql.default_port = 3306
mysql.default_host = "localhost"
mysql.default_user = "root"
mysql.default_password =
mysql.connect_timeout = 60
mysql.trace_mode = Off

mysqli.max_links = -1
mysqli.default_port = 3306
mysqli.default_host = "localhost"
mysqli.default_user = "root"
mysqli.default_pw =
mysqli.reconnect = Off

bcmath.scale = 0

session.save_handler = files
session.save_path = "c:/winnmp/tmp"
session.use_cookies = 1
session.name = PHPSESSID
session.auto_start = 0
session.cookie_lifetime = 0
session.cookie_path = /
session.cookie_domain =
session.cookie_httponly =
session.serialize_handler = php
session.gc_probability = 15
session.gc_divisor = 100
session.gc_maxlifetime = 7200
session.bug_compat_42 = 0
session.bug_compat_warn = 1
session.referer_check = off
session.entropy_length = 0
session.entropy_file =
session.cache_limiter = nocache
session.cache_expire = 180
session.use_trans_sid = 0
session.hash_function = 0
session.hash_bits_per_character = 5

url_rewriter.tags = "a=href,area=href,frame=src,input=src,form=fakeentry"
tidy.clean_output = Off

soap.wsdl_cache_enabled = 1
soap.wsdl_cache_dir = "c:/winnmp/tmp"
soap.wsdl_cache_ttl = 86400

mbstring.internal_encoding = UTF-8
mbstring.detect_order = UTF-8,ISO-8859-15,ISO-8859-1,ASCII

;Extensions
extension = php_bz2.dll
extension = php_curl.dll
extension = php_gd.dll
;extension = php_imap.dll
extension = php_intl.dll
extension = php_mbstring.dll
extension = php_exif.dll
;extension = php_soap.dll
extension = php_sockets.dll
extension = php_openssl.dll
extension = php_fileinfo.dll
extension = php_zip.dll

extension = php_ldap.dll
;extension = php_ffi.dll

;Additional extensions from c:/winnmp/bin/PHP/php-x.x.x/ext
;extension = php_ftp.dll
;extension = php_tidy.dll
;extension = php_xmlrpc.dll
;extension = php_xsl.dll

; Redis Cache / NoSql
; https://github.com/phpredis/phpredis#readme
;extension = php_redis.dll
; Uncomment to use redis as session storage:
;session.save_handler = redis
;session.save_path = "tcp://localhost:6379?weight=1"

;Database Extensions
extension = php_mysqli.dll
;extension = php_pdo_mysql.dll
;extension = php_mongodb.dll
;extension = php_odbc.dll
;extension = php_pdo_odbc.dll
;extension = php_pgsql.dll
;extension = php_pdo_pgsql.dll
;extension = php_sqlite3.dll
;extension = php_pdo_sqlite.dll

Nginx configuration

If your setup is fine your should find a file C:\WinNMP\conf\domains.d\wikindx.conf which is the Nginx config of the Virtual Host dedicated to http://wikindx.test. Example:

server {
	
	## How to allow access from LAN and Internet to your local project:
	## https://winnmp.wtriple.com/howtos#How-to-allow-access-from-LAN-and-Internet-to-your-local-project
	
	listen		127.0.0.1:80;
	
	## Enable self signed SSL certificate:
	## https://winnmp.wtriple.com/howtos#Enable-self-signed-SSL-certificate-for-your-local-project
	# listen		127.0.0.1:443 ssl http2;
	# ssl_certificate_key "c:/winnmp/conf/opensslCA/selfsigned/wikindx.test.key";
	# ssl_certificate "c:/winnmp/conf/opensslCA/selfsigned/wikindx.test.crt";
	
	## How to add additional local test server names to my project:
	## https://winnmp.wtriple.com/howtos#How-to-add-additional-local-test-server-names-to-my-project
	
	server_name 	wikindx.test;
	
	## To manually change the root directive replace the ending comment with: # locked
	## https://winnmp.wtriple.com/howtos#How-to-change-the-root-directory-of-a-project
	
	root 	"c:/winnmp/www/wikindx"; # automatically modified on each restart! can be manually set by replacing this comment
	
	## Access Restrictions
	allow		127.0.0.1;
	deny		all;
	
	## Add locations:
	## https://winnmp.wtriple.com/howtos#How-to-add-locations
	
	## Configure for various PHP Frameworks:
	## http://winnmp.wtriple.com/nginx.php
	
	autoindex on;

	location ~ \.php$ {
		try_files $uri =404;
		include		nginx.fastcgi.conf;
		include		nginx.redis.conf;
		fastcgi_pass	php_farm;
		fastcgi_hide_header X-Powered-By;
	}

	location / {
		try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
	}
}

Instead we will focus on the C:\WinNMP\conf\nginx.conf file. This file is the global config of Nginx and C:\WinNMP\conf\domains.d\wikindx.conf inherits of it. This will improve Adminer configuration at the same time, allow the upload of big files (128MB), and long script execution for database backups from Adminer. Add or set the following options as in the sample file below:

## Timeouts ##
##############

client_body_timeout     300;
client_header_timeout	300;
send_timeout		    600s;

# Amount of time for upstream to wait for a fastcgi process to send data.
# Change this directive if you have long running fastcgi processes that do not produce output until they have finished processing.
# If you are seeing an upstream timed out error in the error log, then increase this parameter to something more appropriate.
fastcgi_read_timeout	600s;

# Request timeout to the server. The timeout is calculated between two write operations, not for the whole request.
# If no data have been written during this period then serve closes the connection.
fastcgi_send_timeout	600s;

# php max upload limit cannot be larger than this
client_max_body_size		128m;

## For a live site, handling more connections, uncomment, then start WinNMP.exe --phpCgiServers=25:
#worker_processes auto;
#worker_rlimit_nofile 100000;

events {
	## For a live site, uncomment:
	#worker_connections 8096;
}

http {
    server_tokens   off;
	sendfile		on;
	tcp_nopush		on;
	tcp_nodelay		on;
	ssi			    off;
	server_names_hash_bucket_size  64;


	## Timeouts ##
	##############

    client_body_timeout     300;
    client_header_timeout	300;
    keepalive_timeout	    25 25;
    send_timeout		    600s;
	resolver_timeout	    3s;

	# Timeout period for connection with FastCGI-server. It should be noted that this value can't exceed 75 seconds.
	fastcgi_connect_timeout 5s;

	# Amount of time for upstream to wait for a fastcgi process to send data.
	# Change this directive if you have long running fastcgi processes that do not produce output until they have finished processing.
	# If you are seeing an upstream timed out error in the error log, then increase this parameter to something more appropriate.
	fastcgi_read_timeout	600s;

	# Request timeout to the server. The timeout is calculated between two write operations, not for the whole request.
	# If no data have been written during this period then serve closes the connection.
	fastcgi_send_timeout	600s;


	## Buffers ##
	#############

	fastcgi_buffers			8 32k;
	fastcgi_buffer_size		32k;
	#fastcgi_busy_buffers_size	256k;
	#fastcgi_temp_file_write_size	256k;

	open_file_cache			off;

	# php max upload limit cannot be larger than this
	client_max_body_size		128m;	

   ####client_body_buffer_size	1K;
	client_header_buffer_size 5120k;
	large_client_header_buffers 16 5120k;
	types_hash_max_size		2048;

	include nginx.mimetypes.conf;
	default_type text/html;

	## Logging ##
	#############

	access_log	"c:/winnmp/log/nginx_access.log";
	error_log	"c:/winnmp/log/nginx_error.log" warn;	#debug or warn
	log_not_found	on;	#enables or disables messages in error_log about files not found on disk.
	rewrite_log	off;

	fastcgi_intercept_errors off;	# Do Not Change (off) !

	gzip  off;

	index  index.php index.htm index.html;

	server {
		# NEVER ALLOW PUBLIC ACCESS TO THIS SERVER !!!
		# Instead, create projects using WinNMP Manager, and allow public access only to those projects!
		# How to allow access from LAN and Internet to your local project:
		# http://WinNMP.wtriple.com/howtos.php#How-to-allow-access-from-LAN-and-Internet-to-your-local-project

		listen		127.0.0.1:80	default_server;		# Do Not Change ! Security Risk !
		#listen		[::1]:80	ipv6only=on;		# Do Not Change ! Security Risk !
		server_name	localhost;				# Do Not Change ! Security Risk !

		# This directive is modified automatically by WinNMP.exe for portability.
		root		"c:/winnmp/www";
		autoindex on;
		
		allow		127.0.0.1;	# Do Not Change ! Security Risk !
		allow		::1;		# Do Not Change ! Security Risk !
		deny		all;		# Do Not Change ! Security Risk !

		## deny access to .htaccess files, if Apache's document root concurs with nginx's one
		location ~ /\.ht {
			deny  all;
		}

		location = /favicon.ico {
				log_not_found off;
		}
		location = /robots.txt {
				log_not_found off;
		}

		## Tools are now served from include/tools/
		location ~ ^/tools/.*\.php$ {					
			root "c:/winnmp/include";
			try_files $uri =404;
			include		nginx.fastcgi.conf;
			fastcgi_pass	php_farm;
			allow		127.0.0.1;		# Do Not Change ! Security Risk !
			allow		::1;			# Do Not Change ! Security Risk !
			deny		all;			# Do Not Change ! Security Risk !
		}
		location ~ ^/tools/ {
			root "c:/winnmp/include";
			allow		127.0.0.1;		# Do Not Change ! Security Risk !
			allow		::1;			# Do Not Change ! Security Risk !
			deny		all;			# Do Not Change ! Security Risk !
		}

		## How to add phpMyAdmin
		## Copy phpMyAdmin files to c:/winnmp/include/phpMyAdmin then uncomment:

		#location ~ ^/phpMyAdmin/.*\.php$ {
		#	root "c:/winnmp/include";
		#	try_files $uri =404;
		#	include         nginx.fastcgi.conf;
		#	fastcgi_pass    php_farm;
		#	allow           127.0.0.1;
		#	allow           ::1;
		#	deny            all;
		#}
		#location ~ ^/phpMyAdmin/ {
		#	root "c:/winnmp/include";
		#}

		## Notice that the root directive lacks /phpMyAdmin because Nginx adds the URL path /phpMyAdmin to the root path, so the resulting directory is c:/winnmp/include/phpMyAdmin
		

		## PHP for localhost ##
		#######################

		location ~ \.php$ {
			try_files $uri =404;
			include		nginx.fastcgi.conf;
			include		nginx.redis.conf;
			fastcgi_pass	php_farm;
			allow		127.0.0.1;		# Do Not Change ! Security Risk !
			allow		::1;			# Do Not Change ! Security Risk !
			deny		all;			# Do Not Change ! Security Risk !
	        }

		# How to allow access from LAN and Internet to your local project:
		# http://WinNMP.wtriple.com/howtos.php#How-to-allow-access-from-LAN-and-Internet-to-your-local-project
	}

	include domains.d/*.conf;
	include nginx.phpfarm.conf;
}

Apache and mod_php on Debian

[TODO]

MacOS

There are several solutions for installing and running the necessary environment for WIKINDX on Mac OSX, but one of our development platforms has used both XAMPP and MAMP so these are known to work with some caveats (see below).

In most cases, you can use the Homebrew package manager to get and install all the necessary software including PHP extensions. This is probably the simplest solution.

Some resources:

XAMPP, with PHP v8.2 and MySQL 8/MariaDb, is known to work almost out of the box with some caveats:

You should, of course, backup your WIKINDX MySQL database(s), as it might need resinstalling. This was the case in our experience where, after upgrading to this version of XAMPP, there were issues with MySQL users and the databases. You must run XAMPP’s ‘mysql_upgrade’ (possibly with the –force option) from the command line (found within the /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/bin/ folder). Check if your WIKINDX database(s) and user(s) need to be reinstalled/added.
The intl extension is required for WIKINDX but is not a part of the XAMPP installation. You can try using homebrew following this guide. This didn’t work for us so we used macports instead following the guide at the bottom of this post Note that, for PHP v8.2, the command should be

shell> sudo port install php82-intl

Whatever method works, /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/etc/php.ini needs the line ’extension=“intl.so”’ before restarting apache.

MAMP, with PHP v8.2 (including intl) and MySQL 5, is known to work almost out of the box with some caveats:

The latest version of WIKINDX requires MySQL 8 so you should install this version on your system. You can stop MAMP’s MySQL 5 running by editing /Applications/MAMP/bib/startMysql and commenting out the command. The command to start MySQL 8 at Mac startup can be found under System Preferences (usually at the bottom of the menu list).
To ensure the MAMP apache server runs at Mac startup, create a file /Library/LaunchDaemons/mamp.apache.start.plist with the following contents:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>mamp.apache.start</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
                <string>/Applications/MAMP/Library/bin/apachectl</string>
                <string>start</string>
        </array>
        <key>QueueDirectories</key>
        <array/>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
        <key>WatchPaths</key>
        <array/>
        <key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
        <dict>
        <key>PATH</key>
        <string>/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin</string>
        </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

Ensure this file is owned by root::wheel
Stop apache in the MAMP app
Load the plist file with

shell> sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apache.start.plist

The next time your Mac starts, apache should be running automatically (along with MySQL).

We are looking for a contribution to complete this section.

Creating a database

WinNMP creates a database on its own. For the other server environments you need to create by hand the database with a MySQL client. Hosting providers have often a dedicated tool.

The suggested database name, user name, and password below must match those in WIKINDX’s top-level config.php ($WIKINDX_DB, $WIKINDX_DB_USER, $WIKINDX_DB_PASSWORD).

With phpMyAdmin

Launch PhpMyAdmin in a web browser, and log in. There might be a link to this in your web server control panel or, if running locally, try http://localhost/phpmyadmin/ in the web browser address bar.
Open the Databases tab. Type in wikindx as the name of a new database, set utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci as the collation, and click Create button.
Go back to the Databases tab, click on Check privileges for the new database, and select Add user account.
In User name field type in wikindx and in password field type wikindx. If running WIKINDX locally, select local for host. Check the checkbox for Grant all privileges on database wikindx then click on the Go button.

With Adminer

Launch Adminer in a web browser, and log in. There might be a link to this in your web server control panel or, if running locally, try http://localhost/adminer/ in the web browser address bar.
Click on Create database top link. Type in wikindx as the name of a new database, set utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci as the collation, and click Save button.
Click on Privileges link at the top of the database screen. Click on Create user link at the top.
In Username field type wikindx and in Password field type wikindx. Check All privileges option and click on Save button.

With mysql CLI

Launch mysql tool from a console session on the hosting server. The command should be something like:

shell> mysql

shell> mysql --user=admin_user_name --password admin_user_pwd

In mysql prompt, execute this SQL query to create the wikindx database:

mysql> CREATE DATABASE wikindx CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci;

Add a wikindx user with a wikindx password, with privileges on wikindx database when it accesses it from localhost hostname server.

mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wikindx.* TO 'wikindx'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'wikindx';

Refresh the privileges:

mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Quit mysql prompt:

mysql> exit