Run Apache, Php and MySQL off a USB Stick

If you are starting to get into web development you may find it starts to get annoying to build a site on RedBrick while using Dreamweaver and Photoshop etc.

The answer to this problem is to run Apache, PHP and MySQL off a USB stick! Maintaining your site on a USB stick allows you to easily plug it into a lab machine and work away and then bring it home and continue right from where you left off.

You will need to own a USB stick of at least 256MB (or 64MB if you can do without MySQL).

• Download the lastest Apache HTTP (windows binary), MySQL Community Server (windows binary) and PHP (windows zip) from their respective sites.

• Format your USB Stick.

• Create a directory called 'pdrive' in the usb root directory - this is where everything will be run from.

• Create a file called 'start.bat' in the usb root directory also, and have it contain the following :

  /pdrive/php-X.X.X/php.exe -c /pdrive/php.ini -f /pdrive/start.php

Where php-X.X.X refers to the version of PHP you will install (i.e. php-5.2.2).

• Create a directory sess in pdrive/ for php to save the session data to.

• Install Apache to pdrive/apache-X.X.X
• Download this httpd.conf to pdrive/apache-X.X.X/conf/
• Create a directory www in prdive/ - this will be where you develope your site.

• Install MySQL to pdrive/mysql

• Unzip PHP to pdrive/php-X.X.X
• Download this PHP.ini to pdrive/

• Finally download start.php to pdrive/ This will be run when you double click start.bat to start up the MySQL and Apache Services as well as open to your USB website, http://localhost:85.

• You will need to update the pages to download to reflect your versions of Apache and PHP.