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XAMPP

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XAMPP is a complete and Open Source Web development solution for Mac OS X.
XAMPP also can be used as a Web hosting solution. The producer doesn't recommend this without some security settings because it comes as a insecure package. The XAMPP interface can give you some hints about this thing. Anyway, the whole package is in the beta state of the development, so usually these kind of solutions are recommended for developers only.
XAMPP features a Apache 2 HTTP server, a MySQL 5 server, a SQLite database engine, a ProFTPd server, and various extensions for Apache and PHP. The Apache server has both the 4th and the 5th version of the PHP. You can switch anytime to any of this version. The package has built in a script that automatically switches between these versions. The package features Perl too.
The Apache server can be accessed via a secure connection. XAMPP has in its distribution package the OpenSSL library, which gives you the possibility to use SSL connections.
The package is supported only by Macs that have a Intel chip within. The original package was a Linux build called LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP). Currently it has been renamed and it's available for various operating systems that uses the x86 hardware architecture. There is an exception though. XAMPP for Solaris runs on the SPARC architecture.
Since it includes database support, the package has built in administration applications that are available via Web interface. You can find in the distribution package a phpMyAdmin and a phpSQLiteAdmin Web administration interfaces.
The Macintosh version of XAMPP doesn't come with an email server. If you would like to use some email functionality, then the package has built in IMAP support for PHP. This is far from a complete email solution that needs a POP/IMAP server, a SMTP server, and a MTA (Mail Transfer Agent), and other utilities that provides you this kind of functionality.
The package also has statistic tools. If you would like to know the stats of your server, then Webalizer that comes with XAMPP is your friend. This a quite good local solution for this kind of statistics. There are Web services that can provide you even more statistical data, but Webalizer has an advantage over those services: it can provide you traffic statistics.
XAMPP comes with a built in Control Panel. Earlier versions of this product didn't include one, so the command line interface (CLI) was the only option. This Control Panel gives you a pretty good and intuitive alternative to the CLI. It can do operations like: start, stop, or restart. It can perform these operations with either the all provided components, or with individual components such as: Apache, MySQL, ProFTPd, or SSL. This panel also gives you the possibility to use the PHP switch. Any of the functionality provided by this panel, can be used via CLI. Basically this Control Panel gives you a nice frontend for the existing applications.
Pluses: it gives you a package with all the required tools for PHP and MySQL developers, it has lots of extensions that can help, it has Web administration tools for the database engines.
Drawbacks / flaws:it has some security issues when it comes to using it as a Web hosting solution, but the producer gives you some hints on the homepage of this product. It doesn't include a email solution, such as at least a SMTP server.
In conclusion:this is a complete solution for Web developers and it can be used for Web hosting. The security holes can be covered, but since this is a beta build of this package, maybe you should think twice before using XAMPP in production.
version reviewed: 0.6.1 (BETA)

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