14 DAY TRIAL // PHP programming language allows you to create server side applications, which will help you add dynamic characteristics to a static website. There are many free web servers available on the Internet for download and supporting PHP. As presented in a previous article, Abyss Web Server is a free lightweight server that runs on Windows, Linux and MacOS. It provides webmasters with a lot of useful features despite of its low size. You can run various types of scripts, because this server has support for PHP, ASP, ASP.NET, Ruby and more.
If you want to run PHP scripts, first you must download Abyss Web Server and PHP package for Windows. After you install both of them in different directories, the server must be configured in order to enable the PHP scripting support.
From the main window of Abyss web server console select Configure - Scripting Parameters. Then choose Interpreters - Add. In the new window, you have the option to specify the interface and the interpreter. The interface could be CGI/ISAPI if you have Windows 95 / 98; otherwise, it should be FastCGI. In the text area corresponding to the interpreter, the full path to php-cgi.exe (use Browse button) must be inserted. In the associated extension to the actual interpreter, you must add php and Type must be set to PHP Style. When you finish, return to the initial configuration window by pressing OK button twice.
Here, you must specify a new type of index file, index.php. After these operations, you will be able to run your PHP scripts, by putting them in htdocs directory. To enable specific PHP features, the php.ini file must be edited according to your PHP customization needs. You can test the PHP support availability with the next simple PHP script which must be saved as index.php and called from a web browser address bar by typing http://localhost/index.php: