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Before you start
This tutorial helps you install and configure all of the software necessary to develop a Drupal-based Web site in Windows®. Follow along and see what the Internet Technology Group develops and how the team works during the development process. Learn more about software installation and how a productive development environment should work in this kind of scenario. At the conclusion of this tutorial, you'll have a blank development canvas to use for any development project.
Our development platform is centered on open source software, with the actual development taking place inside of the Eclipse integrated development environment (IDE). We chose Eclipse because it provides a common development platform in which to collaborate including excellent project file management, local revision history, and an integrated revision control system. It is much easier to share and develop code if each developer is working with the same development environment. There is nothing stopping a member of your team from using their preferred tools and environment, but it can introduce unnecessary complexity.
This tutorial is meant for developers using Windows, although members of our team also use Linux™. If you or one of your team members is going to be using Linux as their development platform, see the companion tutorial Build your development environment in Linux.
This tutorial does not explain how to use the software; it's meant to teach you how to install and configure the tools so they work together. It is assumed that you have general development knowledge, but that you may not be familiar with each piece of software. There are many excellent tutorials on the Web and throughout developerWorks that describe each of the software components in great detail. (See Resources for more information.)
It is important that you follow along in the order presented in this tutorial, because we provide checkpoints that verify the software is installed and functioning correctly.
The basic prerequisites before installing and configuring the software environment include:
- Microsoft® Windows® XP or similar
- Java 1.4 or higher (Java 5 is preferred)
- Internet connection (broadband preferred)
- ~250 MB of available disk space
You are going to be installing several software packages that will require several hundred MB of free disk space and may take hours to download if you are using a dial-up Internet connection.
Table 1 shows the software, and installed sizes, for the development environment we'll build.
Table 1. Software in the development environment
| Software | Installed size |
|---|---|
| Eclipse SDK | 110 MB |
| MySQL 5 | 56.1 MB |
| Drupal 4.7 | 1.7 MB |
| Apache HTTP Web server 2.0 | 21.9 MB |
| phpMyAdmin | 10.9 MB |
| PHP 5 | 26.9 MB |
This tutorial also includes instructions for installing the optional components in Table 2. These may be skipped if you do not have the disk space or don't need to download them.
Table 2. Optional software in the development environment
| Optional software | Installed size |
|---|---|
| MySQL Administrator | 9.7 MB |
| MySQL Query Browser | 9.4 MB |
| Cygwin | 165 MB |
When all of these software packages are installed, we will configure them for development. The exception is the Drupal system. We install Drupal into Eclipse, so won't discuss its installation until after we have configured Eclipse.
Where to install the software is left to your judgment, but it's very important not to use spaces in the installation path. For example, the following path is an unacceptable installation location:
C:\Program Files\Apache Foundation\Apache2 |
The following path is acceptable:
C:\Apache\Apache2 |
Spaces in paths often introduce complications with the build tools and configuration files. It is best to avoid them entirely, unless you want to spend time tracking down a missing quotation mark in a configuration file you created weeks ago.
Table of contents
- Before you start
- Installing Eclipse SDK
- Installing Apache HTTP Web server 2.0
- Installing PHP 5
- Installing MySQL 5
- Installing phpMyAdmin
- Installing optional software components
- Configuring Eclipse
- Configuring MySQL
- Importing and configuring Drupal
- Configuring PHP
- Configuring Apache
- Configuring phpMyAdmin
- Summary
- Resources
- About the authors
Next steps from IBM
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- Try: Download a free trial version of DB2 Express-C, which includes Zend Core PHP and pureXML technology that is ideally suited for managing both XML and relational data and powering a new breed of SOA and Web 2.0 solutions.
- Article: This IBM Redbook shows how to port PHP apps from MySQL to DB2, and includes code samples for creating Zend Core PHP applications.
- Tutorial: In this Mastering Facebook app development tutorial series, you will use Java and PHP in parallel to build a Facebook interface for an online stock trading J2EE application using the Spring framework.
- Buy: DB2 9 for Linux, UNIX and Windows
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