AppServ hasn’t been updated since year 2008. The packages are actually outdated.

Below are the tips and tricks for setting up php and apache from sketch in order to switch from plain old app serv to update-to-date apache and php.

1.  32 bits or 64 bits?

this must be decided first before downloading the packages, which apache and php must be aligned, i.e. same platform must be selected for both php and apache, either 32bits or 64bits

2. php thread safe?

must download the thread safe version for apache. non-thread safe is just for IIS…

I downloaded below packages from the web

php-5.5.12-Win32-VC11-x64.zip

httpd-2.4.9-win64-VC11.zip

3. Unzip all those files into certain folder, i used the same “c:\AppServ” with different folder name as AppServ used to prevent conflicts first.

i.e. c:\AppServ\

– apache24

– php55

– mysql (didn’t upgrade yet… it’s more complicated when upgrading DB…)

4. Setup Apache configuration, note the changes in config setting from apache web site

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/trunk/upgrading.html

5. Link apache to php

LoadModule php5_module “C:/AppServ/php55/php5apache2_4.dll”
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .php
PHPIniDir ‘C:\AppServ\php55\php.ini’

*Remember the PHPIniDir must be in normal slash and single quote ‘ *

6. Setup extension for php to MySQL

extension_dir = “C:\AppServ\php55\ext\”

* use full path!!! *

php still refer to c:\windows\ as the root path even apache pointing to the correct ini file. phpinfo() can help!

7. Performance Turning

in php.ini, i set output_buffering = Off . Seems it’s even faster, don’t know why…

added below config to httpd.conf as well for performance reasons…

HostnameLookups Off

SendBufferSize 1048576

8. Special Setup for Windows

Apache 2.4 hangs randomly while the httpd.exe is running.

The solution is to add the following to your httpd.conf:

AcceptFilter http none
AcceptFilter https none

On Windows, this has the effect of disabling the AcceptEx() API (part of WinSock), which offers some performance improvements, but probably conflicts with Comodo Firewall.

Putting Comodo Firewall in “Disabled” mode doesn’t help because requests probably still go through Comodo’s networking code. I think Comodo would have to be uninstalled completely to eliminate the problem (though I haven’t tried it).

If you have a similar problem with Apache 2.2, you should use the Win32DisableAcceptEx directive instead.

Explanation:

From the Apache docs about AcceptFilter:

This directive enables operating system specific optimizations for a listening socket by the Protocol type.
…
On Windows, none uses accept() rather than AcceptEx() and will not recycle sockets between connections. This is useful for network adapters with broken driver support, as well as some virtual network providers such as vpn drivers, or spam, virus or spyware filters.

FOR /F "delims=|" %%I IN ('DIR "*.*" /B /O:D') DO SET NewestFile=%%I

@echo off
set /p id="Enter ID: " %=%

1. In PowerShell, enable remote signed
Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
2. Create following powershell script to log down the result

$ping = new-object System.Net.NetworkInformation.Ping
$WriteLog = "ServerMonitorLog.csv"
$servers = "www.google.com","www.carters.com","hk.yahoo.com"
$FileExists = (Test-Path $WriteLog -PathType Leaf)

#If No Log File Exists, generate header
if(!($FileExists))
{
	Add-Content $WriteLog "Date,Time,Server,IPAddress,Time,TTL"
}

Foreach($s in $servers)
{
	$reply = $ping.send($s)
	$now = Get-Date
	
	if ($reply.status -eq "Success"){
		$result=[string]::Format("{0},{1},{2},{3},{4},{5}",$now.ToShortDateString(),$now.ToShortTimeString(),$s, $reply.Address.ToString(),$reply.RoundtripTime,$reply.Options.Ttl)
	}else{
		$z = [system.net.dns]::gethostaddresses($hostname)[0].ipaddresstostring
		$result=[string]::Format("FAIL,{0},{1}",$z,"***")
	}
	Add-Content $WriteLog $result
}