whyme 0 Report post Posted February 11, 2005 I thought I'd submit this little guide of mines, after I gave my friend an impromptu introduction on this. I hope those who are new to PHP and MySQL will fin this usefull. What is PHP? PHP is a scripting program, you install PHP into your server, BUT, you can only do it if you have "physical" access to the server, (i.e. - you can close the server, add stuff to the server, clear the server, remove the server). People who have web hosting accounts CAN NOT install PHP, because, they only "own" a part of the server. You must be the server administrator in order to install any PHP. What is MySQL? MySQL is an open source database, what this means is that it is able to GRAB information from PHP and attach it into a database, called MySQL (There are other databases out there, like MS Access and ProtegeSQL). Installing MySQL and PHP You CANNOT install MySQL or PHP if you only have a web hosting account, because installing these means system wide changes throughout the server. Essentailly, you must OWN the server in order to install PHP or MySQL. Now, when you register for a free web hosting account, sometimes they will give you ONE MySQL database, essentially, all you need is one database for any purposes, the only reason why you see web hosts offer something like ?50 MySQL? or ?100 MySQL? databases, is because people don?t want to have hundreds of PHP scripts using one database. Also, the host will likely offer PHP, sometime, they don?t, and only allow to have HTML. In addition to this, more powerful free web hosts will even give you ?control panel access?. Which means you can create/edit/delete/ almost every aspect of your web hosting account, such as protecting certain directories, making MySQL databases, and showing you how much bandwidth you are using, this often requires corporate programs, like cPanel, or zPanel. Most free hosts do not offer this. However, it is not necessary to get a ?web hosting control panel? in order to get a successful and well established website. A very basic free PHP and MySQL host will give you usually the following features: ? PHP support ? At least 1 MySQL database ? PHPMyAdmin ? One FTP account You are probably wondering what the hell PHPMyAdmin and FTP is, lets start off with FTP. FTP is (File Transfer Protocol) - A way of transferring files over the internet from one computer to another. Basically, it?s a way of ?mass? sending files from your computer to your server. If you have used web hosts before, you may realize that they have a page where you login and upload your files, with like, 5 upload boxes. If you have lots of files to upload, this can be a long and tedious process. That?s where FTP comes in, you simply mass transfer files in one click. Now, when you get your FTP account it will be something like this, BUT, not always is like this: FTP URL: ftp.yourname.yourwebhost.com FTP Username: yourusername FTP Password: blahblah But, how do I access this FTP? I hear you bellow. FTP can be done in several ways: 1. thru internet explorer 2. thru an FTP program Uploading thru your browser is the quickest way, but not necessary the fastest when transferring files. Uploading thru a so-called ?FTP program? is a program where you open it, fill in your FTP URL, username, and password, and transfer your files To upload thru internet explorer, type in your FTP URL, and then an error or a message will pop-up. Click OK, then go to File > Login As... You will see a prompting box that asks for your username and password Now, fill in those values, and login. YOU HAVE JUST ACCESSED FTP! Now, you just need to copy and paste or drag and drop files into that area, which then corresponds to your own web address Essentially, it?s the same thing if you use an FTP Program, but transferring your files thru a program is much faster than using SmartFTP(URL @ http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ ? I think it is, if not, Google for it). You simply do the same thing once you have uploaded your program. Why FTP? FTP is dead useful when you are installing large PHP scripts, can be hundereds, if not thousands of files. Onto PHPMyAdmin With its seemingly obvious name, it?s got to have something to do with PHP, yes, and also, MySQL. Whenever you install PHP scripts that require MySQL, it will have you fill in something called tables, table organize out a database so the PHP scrpt can grab information from the database, if not, it?d all be a bunch of text. Sometimes, the script does this automatically, other times, not so much. If it does not do it, then you will have to use PHP MyAdmin, all you need to do is login to PHPMyAdmin thru your MySQL database name and password, these will be supplied to you by your webhost. Simply upload the file that your script has supplied withyou, and uploaded the ?table? into your database. More on MySQL My sql is a very, very powerful database, in which case, you will have to fill in values in your script to access it This includes: MySQL connection name: almost 99% of the time this will be ?localhost? MySQL Username: Usually your web hosting account name, ex. Username1 MySQL Database Name: The name of your database, ex. Database_1 MySQL Password: Duh This is an impromptu intro to advanced web hosting and PHP and other stuff by whyme Written on Thursday, February 10, 2005 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
