Lightweight web server for Windows?

What do people on this list use as an ultra-lightweight web server (with
PHP capability of course) on Windows? I have an old but still well
functioning laptop that I have just given a second life by installing
Windows Fundamentals (a stripped down version of XP). This works
surprisingly well. So now I am looking for the necessary software, so I
can do some local programming.

Some requirements I can think of:

- Extremely small memory footprint and fast efficient code. This laptop
still works well but it can certainly use some help!
- Both free as in beer and free as in speech would be my preference.
- Be able to run as a "service" in XP.
- Be able to run PHP (obviously) and perhaps a few other nice server
features, like SSI and name based virtual hosts.

Any suggestions? I have not seriously used Windows for years now, so my
knowledge of that platform is not exactly up to date anymore. I am used
to dealing with Debian/Ubuntu Linux and Apache but not much else,
frankly. Apache does seem to heavy for this. My initial thought was to
install Lighttpd under Cygwin, but perhaps I would be missing out on some
great little server program that I have not yet heard about.

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Re: Lightweight web server for Windows?

Try nginx (http://nginx.net/), very light, has a Windows binary
distribution and can be configured easily for PHP.

You can also find some version of Lighttpd compiled for Windows and
skip the compilation troubles, and you can use this:
http://sites.google.com/site/lightytray/ to control the webserver.

Both of them are lighter than Apache.

Good luck,

Jonathan

On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 6:00 PM, O. Lavell wrote:
> What do people on this list use as an ultra-lightweight web server (with
> PHP capability of course) on Windows? I have an old but still well
> functioning laptop that I have just given a second life by installing
> Windows Fundamentals (a stripped down version of XP). This works
> surprisingly well. So now I am looking for the necessary software, so I
> can do some local programming.
>
> Some requirements I can think of:
>
> - Extremely small memory footprint and fast efficient code. This laptop
> =A0still works well but it can certainly use some help!
> - Both free as in beer and free as in speech would be my preference.
> - Be able to run as a "service" in XP.
> - Be able to run PHP (obviously) and perhaps a few other nice server
> =A0features, like SSI and name based virtual hosts.
>
> Any suggestions? I have not seriously used Windows for years now, so my
> knowledge of that platform is not exactly up to date anymore. I am used
> to dealing with Debian/Ubuntu Linux and Apache but not much else,
> frankly. Apache does seem to heavy for this. My initial thought was to
> install Lighttpd under Cygwin, but perhaps I would be missing out on some
> great little server program that I have not yet heard about.
>
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> To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
>
>

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Re: Lightweight web server for Windows?

Hello,

on 11/15/2009 07:00 PM O. Lavell said the following:
> What do people on this list use as an ultra-lightweight web server (with
> PHP capability of course) on Windows? I have an old but still well
> functioning laptop that I have just given a second life by installing
> Windows Fundamentals (a stripped down version of XP). This works
> surprisingly well. So now I am looking for the necessary software, so I
> can do some local programming.
>
> Some requirements I can think of:
>
> - Extremely small memory footprint and fast efficient code. This laptop
> still works well but it can certainly use some help!
> - Both free as in beer and free as in speech would be my preference.
> - Be able to run as a "service" in XP.
> - Be able to run PHP (obviously) and perhaps a few other nice server
> features, like SSI and name based virtual hosts.
>
> Any suggestions? I have not seriously used Windows for years now, so my
> knowledge of that platform is not exactly up to date anymore. I am used
> to dealing with Debian/Ubuntu Linux and Apache but not much else,
> frankly. Apache does seem to heavy for this. My initial thought was to
> install Lighttpd under Cygwin, but perhaps I would be missing out on some
> great little server program that I have not yet heard about.

I use lighttpd on Linux, but there seems to exist a Windows version as well:

http://www.lighttpd.net/

I have written about using it with PHP here:

http://www.phpclasses.org/blog/post/69-13-rules-to-optimize- your-Web-site-performance.html


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RE: Lightweight web server for Windows?

Out of curiosity, if this is just for coding, and you're already a Linux
guy, why not just install a lightweight linux flavor on the laptop instead
of WF/XP?

http://www.xfce.org/

http://lightlinux.blogspot.com/2008/06/top-10-of-lightweight -linux_24.html

You didn't mention the specs, but any computer of the past few years is
pretty powerful. I used to rock a Dell i8200 (P4/1GB) and XP with a VMWare
workstation of Gentoo. SAMBA mount it and use NAT and it works awesome. So
you could try that. http://www.vmware.com/products/player/ and there are a
ton of pre-built VMs to download there http://www.vmware.com/appliances/. Or
you could also go with Sun's http://www.virtualbox.org too.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: O. Lavell [mailto:olavell@xs4all.nl]
> Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2009 1:00 PM
> To: php-general@lists.php.net
> Subject: [PHP] Lightweight web server for Windows?
>
> What do people on this list use as an ultra-lightweight web
> server (with
> PHP capability of course) on Windows? I have an old but still well
> functioning laptop that I have just given a second life by installing
> Windows Fundamentals (a stripped down version of XP). This works
> surprisingly well. So now I am looking for the necessary
> software, so I
> can do some local programming.
>
> Some requirements I can think of:
>
> - Extremely small memory footprint and fast efficient code.
> This laptop
> still works well but it can certainly use some help!
> - Both free as in beer and free as in speech would be my preference.
> - Be able to run as a "service" in XP.
> - Be able to run PHP (obviously) and perhaps a few other nice server
> features, like SSI and name based virtual hosts.
>
> Any suggestions? I have not seriously used Windows for years
> now, so my
> knowledge of that platform is not exactly up to date anymore.
> I am used
> to dealing with Debian/Ubuntu Linux and Apache but not much else,
> frankly. Apache does seem to heavy for this. My initial
> thought was to
> install Lighttpd under Cygwin, but perhaps I would be missing
> out on some
> great little server program that I have not yet heard about.
>
> --
> PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
> To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
>


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Re: Lightweight web server for Windows?

Jonathan Tapicer wrote:

> Try nginx (http://nginx.net/), very light, has a Windows binary
> distribution and can be configured easily for PHP.

Sorry for my late reply, and thank you for this suggestion. I am now
trying nginx and it looks very promising so far. It seems to be both a
very simple and sufficiently capable little web server. There is only a
little problem that it doesn't run as a service in Windows, but there may
be solutions for that.


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Re: Lightweight web server for Windows?

Manuel Lemos wrote:

> Hello,
>
> on 11/15/2009 07:00 PM O. Lavell said the following:

[..]

>> My initial thought was to install Lighttpd under Cygwin, but perhaps I
>> would be missing out on some great little server program that I have
>> not yet heard about.
>
> I use lighttpd on Linux, but there seems to exist a Windows version as
> well:
>
> http://www.lighttpd.net/

I know that, yes, and I have used it once or twice on Linux. That's why I
thought of installing it on Windows as well.

> I have written about using it with PHP here:
>
> http://www.phpclasses.org/blog/post/69-13-rules-to-optimize- your-Web-
> site-performance.html

Interesting. And thank you also for your reply. I may return to the idea
of installing lighttpd, but for now I am giving nginx a spin.


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Re: Lightweight web server for Windows?

Daevid Vincent wrote:

> Out of curiosity, if this is just for coding, and you're already a Linux
> guy, why not just install a lightweight linux flavor on the laptop
> instead of WF/XP?

This is a rather prehistoric (Windows 98 era) laptop, a Compaq Armada
1700 with 266 MHz CPU. Somewhere along the way it was rescued from total
uselessness when it received a RAM upgrade from 64 to 192 MB. It has been
lying on a shelf in my study for years.

It does run Linux and I tried several distros. There are certainly
lightweight window managers that I could live with too (like BlackBox).
But running Firefox within those limited capabilities is really too much
to ask. Firefox has obviously become a memory hungry, slow starting
beast. Another annoyance would be the cooling fan: to keep it from
blowing non-stop at full force I would have to compile and consequently
maintain my own 2.6 kernel (something peculiar about this specific laptop
that is never going to be fixed in Linux). Then someone told me to try
"Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs" and I was pleasantly surprised. It
is about as fast as or perhaps even faster than Windows 98 ever was and I
am running both IE8 and Chrome. Not super fast but quite usable, must
only remember not too open too many tabs in either browser.

I could certainly throw the old laptop away, buy a new(er) one that can
run any software. But somehow I find it satisfying that with only a few
adaptations I can still use an almost 10 year old computer and not miss
out on too much modern frills. I guess I am eccentric like that.

Also, it is not for daily use. I have two desktop computers and a server
for that. This is for when I have to go by train or something.

Essentially it is just an extra plaything.

Speaking of playing: it doesn't play Youtube videos, just chokes on them.
Oh well. Hope your curiosity is satisfied ;)


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Re: Lightweight web server for Windows?

O. Lavell wrote:
>
> Also, it is not for daily use. I have two desktop computers and a server
> for that. This is for when I have to go by train or something.
>
> Essentially it is just an extra plaything.
>

Does the battery still hold enough charge for a train journey - that always
seems to be the first thing that goes on old laptops.
They make really good low-power servers for stuff like DNS or even firewalling
(as long as you can plug in enough network cards), but only when on mains power :(

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Re: Lightweight web server for Windows?

Hi,

> What do people on this list use as an ultra-lightweight web server (with
> PHP capability of course) on Windows? I have an old but still well
> functioning laptop that I have just given a second life by installing
> Windows Fundamentals (a stripped down version of XP). This works
> surprisingly well. So now I am looking for the necessary software, so I
> can do some local programming.

I would have recommended Omni HTTPd, but it seems it is no more.
Anyone know what happened to it? Regardless, I'd recommend buying a
server (cheap or otherwise) running your target environment, and use
that. If it's *nix, then you can use WinSCP to interface with it.

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Re: Lightweight web server for Windows?

Peter Ford wrote:
> O. Lavell wrote:
>>
>> Also, it is not for daily use. I have two desktop computers and a
>> server for that. This is for when I have to go by train or something.
>>
>> Essentially it is just an extra plaything.
>>
>>
> Does the battery still hold enough charge for a train journey - that
> always seems to be the first thing that goes on old laptops.

Still good for about 1,5 hours at full brightness. Less, obviously, when
I use either the PCMCIA network card or a USB Wifi stick. But I won't on
the train. Not bad really, this was another thing I was pleasantly
surprised with.


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Re: Lightweight web server for Windows?

richard wrote:

> I would have recommended Omni HTTPd, but it seems it is no more. Anyone
> know what happened to it?

Funny, how it seems that there aren't so many choices for this in the
Windows world.

> Regardless, I'd recommend buying a server
> (cheap or otherwise) running your target environment, and use that. If
> it's *nix, then you can use WinSCP to interface with it.

I already have a server in the attic that I use for most of my projects
and experimentations. For some other stuff I do I connect to my clients'
servers with VPN, SSH et cetera.

Now I just have an extra little computer that I can use to try out ideas
from the sofa and to make better use my time on my weekly train trip.

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