WinNMP - portable Nginx MariaDB Redis Php development stack for Windows

A portable, preconfigured, lightweight, fast and stable server stack for developing php mysql applications on windows, based on the excellent webserver Nginx. A lighter alternative to XAMPP and WAMP.

How to create a new Project

• Open WinNMP Manager by clicking the taskbar or desktop icon, then click on New Project icon, choose a project name like myProjectName, hit Enter or click Save Project
• Accept the User Account Control warning about HostsEditor.exe. This is required to map the domain name myProjectName.test to localhost, for testing SEF links and other Nginx rewrite rules.
• Set the project Live Url if any. This should point to the production version of your project, hosted on a remote server.
• Click Save to close the Edit Project window
• In the Projects list, click View Local Virtual Server to see the default New WinNMP Project page.
• Add project php files in c:\pathTo\WWW\myProjectName folder.
• Use HeidiSql or Adminer to create the project's database
• The default MariaDb(MySql) host is localhost with username root and no password.
• The default Redis host is localhost port 6379
• Take a look at How to create a new LARAVEL project in WinNMP

• Upload or Sync the project files to the remote server, as explained below.

  

Create new PHP projects using various web application frameworks

Configure NGINX virtual server for various PHP Frameworks

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How to upload files or synchronize your project to a server using WinSCP:

• In the Projects list, click Project Setup
• Setup the remote connection and Save.

• Return to the project list and click on Synchronize or Browse icons. A WinSCP dialog will open.

  

  

How to use COMPOSER:

Composer is a tool for dependency management in PHP used to download and keep updated various PHP frameworks and components. After you created a new project in c:\pathTo\WWW\myProjectName, click on Open Command Prompt icon, then run commands like:

composer create-project silverstripe/installer myProjectName 3.1.*

composer create-project laravel/laravel myProjectName --prefer-dist

cd myProjectName
composer require components/jquery 
composer require components/bootstrap-datetimepicker

cd myProjectName
composer create-project symfony/framework-standard-edition c:\pathTo\WWW\myProjectName 2.4.*

How to change the root directory of a project:

Your project's Nginx settings are stored in conf\domains.d\myProjectName.conf. This file`s root directive is automatically modified by the WinNMP manager for portability.

If you want to use a custom root folder for your project, for example WWW\myProjectName\public, you can manually set this root directive and lock it using the comment # locked

    root "C:\PathTo\WWW\myProjectName\public"; # locked

How to send emails using PHP

WinNMP has 2 options for processing emails sent by PHP's mail() function: mSmtp and mailToDisk (default). To change the option, edit conf\php.ini and modify sendmail_path:

• For Development use mailToDisk (the default): sendmail_path = '"C:/WinNMP/bin/php" -n -f "C:/WinNMP/include/tools/mailtodisk.php" --' Emails will be saved to log\mail-XX.eml

• For Production use mSmtp: sendmail_path = '"C:/WinNMP/bin/msmtp/msmtp.exe" -C "C:/WinNMP/conf/msmtp.ini" -t' You also need to edit conf\msmtp.ini in order to configure SMTP server options

How to allow access from LAN and Internet to your local project:

In the Projects list, click , check Enable Local Virtual Server, then Save.

Edit WinNMP\conf\domains.d\projectName.conf directly or click on Edit Nginx Virtual Server button in the Edit Project window

Modify like this:

server {
    listen      127.0.0.1:80;
    listen          *:80;

    server_name     projectName.test projectName.com projectName.myDomain.com;

    ### Access Restrictions
    allow           all;
    ## deny         all;

Now Kill Nginx, Start Nginx OR Check Nginx Configuration Syntax.

How to add additional local test server names to my project:

You can always use different/multiple server names for your Local Virtual Server. Use Hosts File Editor (the third icon) to add extra local server names like:

127.0.0.1    projectName.dev
127.0.0.1    projectName.test
127.0.0.1    www.projectName.xyz

Then Edit conf\domains.d\projectName.conf and add

server_name projectName.dev projectName.test www.projectName.xyz;

How to add locations

If you want a location like /phpMyAdmin to serve files from a directory outside your project (but inside PHP's open_basedir), for example C:/WinNMP/include/phpMyAdmin you need to edit the Nginx config file:

Edit WinNMP\conf\domains.d\projectName.conf to set http://projectName.local/phpMyAdmin

Edit WinNMP\conf\nginx.conf to set http://localhost/phpMyAdmin

server {
    ....
    location ~ ^/phpMyAdmin/.*\.php$ {
            root "C:/WinNMP/include";
            try_files $uri =404;
            include         nginx.fastcgi.conf;
            fastcgi_pass    php_farm;
            allow           127.0.0.1;
            allow           ::1;
            deny            all;
    }
    location ~ ^/phpMyAdmin/ {
             root "C:/WinNMP/include";
    }
}

Notice that the root directive lacks /phpMyAdmin because Nginx adds the URL path /phpMyAdmin to the root path, so the resulting directory is C:/WinNMP/include/phpMyAdmin